Believe Me
by Robin Jeannene
Summary: Post movie: Autumn Aki is and ordinary college girl with a sad story. She is tormented at night by the Boogeyman and her one last hope to find something good to believe in is fading away because she's never laid eyes on Jack Frost. Can Jack save Autumn before she falls into Pitch's darkness forever?
1. To Be Believed In

**A/N: So new story because I'm obsessed with Rise of the Guardians and this has been running around in my head since I saw the movie. Post movie about twenty-five years later.  
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**I don't own.  
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**Chapter 1: To Be Believed In**

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On the outside, Autumn Aki was just your ordinary twenty-year-old college girl. She had three part-time babysitting jobs and a full-time course load at the local community college where she was studying to be a teacher for deaf students. She was a high achiever and a practical joker.

Most people wouldn't think the two qualities mixed well, but for Autumn, it worked. When she wasn't practicing American Sign Language or studying for her Praxis Exams, she was hanging out with her friends in the café at the college and acting ten years her younger.

Her mother would say that Autumn had aged backwards. This was because, growing up, she was the most mature child anyone had ever met, but when adulthood started to approach, Autumn scrambled to pick up the scattered pieces of her childhood. She had missed out on all the things children did because she was so determined to grow up fast enough to look after herself. She had to do this because it was just her and her mother and they were very poor. Mrs. Aki had to work two full-time jobs just to pay the rent and wasn't around much to look after her only daughter, and as a result, Autumn had to grow up fast.

Despite this—or perhaps because of this—Autumn still retained some childhood fears and beliefs. At the age of twenty, she still kept a nightlight in her bedroom because she was afraid of the dark. She also insisted that her bed be just the mattress and box-spring on the floor instead of having a frame that kept it up. She told her mother that it was because she fell out of bed a lot and having the bed on the floor meant it was a shorter distance to fall. The real reason, however, was that she didn't want her bed to have an _under_. Furthermore, she would have no mirrors in her bedroom; this was because her reflection in the dark scared her more than she wanted to admit.

Bedtime still held that fear of monsters in the closet and the Boogeyman under the bed, but in the winter, it also held that old superstition of how to summon the snow. Every winter, Autumn cut up a paper snowflake, put it under her pillow and go to bed with her pajamas inside-out, all the while repeating one phrase in her head: _Jack Frost, come and make the snow fall._

Autumn believed that all things were real. That is to say, all things that you can imagine; everything you ever read or watched in movies exists. Not in the conventional sense that you can see and touch it, but in the sense that there are parallel dimensions that these things exist in. However, there were only two things she believed, without a doubt, lived in her own dimension; two things most people didn't believe in. Those two things were the Boogeyman and Jack Frost.

She had believed in the Boogeyman for as long as she could remember. He haunted her nightmares and flitted across her bedroom at night in the form of a shadow. Her mother had told her repeatedly that he wasn't real, that she was just dreaming when she saw those shadows, but Autumn knew better. She had seen him.

She believed in the Boogeyman because she had seen him, but in the case of Jack Frost, she had never seen him. She started believing in him when she was in fourth grade.

It was winter and Autumn loved the snow. She would take the toboggan made of flexible plastic that she liked to call a crazy carpet out into the snow to shoot down the hills at an alarming rate. When she grew too cold to hold onto the crazy carpet any longer, she would go inside for cocoa.

She peeled off every layer except her thermal and rested them on the radiator to melt the snow off of them and ran to the kitchen, where her mother was making cocoa.

"Here you go, Autumn," her mother said, handing her a cup of cocoa.

"Thanks, mom!" she replied.

"That should warm you up, your face is all red from the cold," Mrs. Aki commented with a laugh. "Jack Frost has been nipping at your nose."

Autumn looked up in confusion. "Who's Jack Frost?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know, dear," Mrs. Aki replied, trying to remember where she had heard the phrase before. "It's just an expression."

Even at nine years old, Autumn knew that stories didn't come from nowhere and neither did common expressions. There was always a reason people said the things they did, and she was determined to get to the bottom of who Jack Frost was.

So after school the next day, she used a library computer to find out just who Jack Frost was. The best she could come up with was a small little article on Wikipedia. It said: "No one is really certain where the phrase 'Jack Frost is nipping at your nose' came from. However, speculations have been written with the belief that Jack Frost is the personification of winter and brings snow and ice when the cold season comes. It is believed that he is a mischievous spirit that 'nips' at the extremities in cold weather. One myth to summon snow says to put a paper snowflake under your pillow and go to sleep with your pajamas inside-out thinking the phrase 'Jack Frost, come and make the snow fall.'"

Every winter since, when the weather got cold, Autumn would repeat this ritual to bring the snow. And every winter, it worked; the very next morning, she would find that it had snowed in the night and everything would be crisp and white. This was why she believed in Jack Frost, even into adulthood.

But her belief in Jack was never as strong as it was in the Boogeyman, for she had seen the Boogeyman with her own eyes, and she had never seen Jack.

* * *

One Saturday in mid-November, Autumn went home after babysitting a five-year-old girl named Sarah and her baby brother, Max.

Her mother greeted her from the kitchen, where she was making fried rice and steamed vegetables for dinner.

"Hi, Autumn. How was work?"

"Same as usual, except that Sara lost her first tooth today," she replied hanging up her jacket and taking off her shoes.

"That means the Tooth Fairy will be paying a little someone a visit, eh?" Mrs. Aki poked her head out from around the corner to look at her daughter with a knowing smile.

Autumn scoffed. "You know I haven't believed in the Tooth Fairy since I was seven."

"I hope you didn't tell poor Sarah that the Fairy isn't real," her mother said with a frown.

"Of course not!" Autumn was affronted. "Just because I don't believe, doesn't mean I'm going to crush the dreams of an impressionable five-year-old! What sort of person do you think I am, mom?"

"I was just checking."

Mrs. Aki went back to the kitchen to attend the rice, while Autumn went upstairs to put her purse and keys away.

She sighed. Why did her mother always have to do that? She thought. She always had to bring up those silly little stories from when she was little; the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman. She seemed to think they were real.

Autumn had stopped believing in such things when she was very young. She once woke to her mother trying to replace her baby tooth with a dollar under her pillow when she was seven. And when she learned to recognize her mother's handwriting when she was eight, she realized that she had never gotten a gift from Santa. She had also pretended to be asleep one Easter when she was nine to see if she could spot the Easter Bunny, instead, she saw her mother hiding foil-wrapped chocolate eggs around the house. What's worse, she knew the Sandman couldn't be real and seriously doubted the existence of good dreams, because the only time she didn't have a dream that didn't turn out wrong, was when she didn't dream at all. In fact, Autumn was surprised she even believed in anything at all, what with all the childhood stories not being a part of her life.

Oddly, it was her mother who genuinely seemed to believe in all of these stories. She swore up and down that she saw Santa with her own two eyes when she was very little and never forgot. Autumn was sure her mother had been dreaming. Even stranger than a forty-year-old woman believing in Santa when her daughter didn't was that the most realistic thing to believe in, the Boogeyman, her mother insisted wasn't real. But the others… It was like her mother desperately wanted Autumn to believe and felt like she had failed as a mother because she didn't.

"Autumn!" her mother's voice broke through her musings. "Dinner's ready."

Autumn sighed again and made her way down to dinner, hoping to put this fairy tale nonsense on the back burner for awhile.

No such luck. As soon as she started to eat, her mother asked her a question that brought the whole mess to the dinner table.

"Have you started writing your letter to Santa yet?"

"Mom," Autumn said in annoyance. "Really?"

Her mother sighed and tried a different track. "Have you started writing your wish list yet?"

"Not yet," Autumn said softly. "I don't really know what I want. You can just get me anything."

"But I want to get you something you want," her mother pouted.

"You could just give me money, and I can save it for when I see something I like," Autumn offered.

"No, no. You'll just spend it on textbooks for school. I want to give you something you want, not something you need."

"Well, maybe I'll go window shopping next week and put together a list."

"Sounds like a good idea!"

Mrs. Aki seemed satisfied with that and they spoke no more during the meal.

* * *

After dinner, Autumn went to the television and popped an old movie into the old VCR. They couldn't afford much but they had gotten the television and the VCR at a yard sale a couple of years ago, along with a couple of tapes. Autumn had watched every movie they owned so many times, she had lost track of the number, and she had also memorized the words in every one.

Her favorite movie was "Jack Frost". It was a stop motion movie about the spirit of winter, who was invisible to all but his fellow spirits, and it was this movie she decided to watch tonight. She sang along to the songs under her breath and thought that tonight would be a good night to summon the snow.

As she got ready for bed that night, putting her pajamas on inside-out, she still hummed the song from the beginning of the movie out loud. She checked that her dream catcher was still hung above her bed, ensured that her closed door was firmly closed, plugged in her nightlight, and placed her paper snowflake under her pillow before turning off the light and climbing into bed. As with every winter for the last eleven years, Autumn chanted in her head _Jack Frost, come and make the snow fall,_ as she drifted off to sleep.

As the young woman fell into a slumber, a shadowy figure drifted across the room. He was not impressed with the wintery ritual the she performed as she fell asleep. He was the Boogeyman, Pitch Black, King of Nightmares and he most certainly did _not_ like Jack Frost. The boy was always messing up his plans and getting underfoot with his attitude.

Pitch had spent a long time paying for his last attempt to overthrow the Guardians and he was especially angry at Jack for the part he played in his defeat. Instead of attacking right away however, Pitch had come up with a plan. A plan that had somehow gotten lost in the beginning, twenty-two years ago, when he had escaped that wretched hole his own nightmares dragged him into. He had gotten distracted by something he couldn't quite recall and had forgotten the plan. But now he had a new plan, and it revolved around Autumn Aki, the adult who still believed in the Boogeyman.

He had never before had an adult believe in him to his remembering and it gave him such a boost in his powers that he had never felt before. It was as if the belief of one adult was worth that of a million children. He had paid Autumn special attention throughout her teenage years to ensure that her belief never faltered and neither did his powers over darkness and nightmares.

Unfortunately for him, though, the girl also believed in Jack Frost and that gave the winter spirit the same boost of power it gave Pitch. Fortunately however, Jack still struggled to get people to believe in him, and so he still couldn't match Pitch without the other Guardians backing him. Good thing for Pitch, Autumn didn't believe in the other Guardians or his plan would never work.

Still, though, he hated winter. So, silently as a shadow, he slipped his hand under her pillow and snatched the paper snowflake from beneath the girl's head. Pitch glared accusingly at the snowflake as if it were the person it was meant to summon.

"You won't win this time, Jack," he said softly with venom.

Then he tore the piece of paper into shreds and let them fall to the floor beside the girl's bed. He smirked at her and thought about what sort of nightmare he ought to give her.

He knew her face quite well, for he had followed her for several years. She had short black hair that came to her jaw and often fell in her face. Her eyes had a slightly Asian look to them as her mother was half Japanese, and he knew that her irises would be dark brown, almost black. She had small features that were relaxed with sleep, but not for long.

Finally deciding what nightmare to give her, Pitch sprinkled black sand over her face. As he did this, Autumn's relaxed expression suddenly became pained. The sand formed itself into her dream giving it shape. She was caught in a fierce blizzard wearing only her inside-out pajamas, getting colder and colder by the second. The sleeping girl gave a whimper and began to mutter in her sleep.

"No… Jack… stop…" she pleaded softly.

Pitch chuckled in satisfaction. Take that, Jack Frost.

* * *

Autumn woke up in a terrible state. Her nightmare had felt like it was mocking her, like the entire time, someone had been enjoying the show.

She glared at the dream catcher. Fat load of good that stupid thing did her; it couldn't even do what its name implied. Looking past the useless thing, she turned her attention to the window and wondered how much Jack Frost had made it snow.

She crossed the room and pulled back the curtains to find… nothing. Not one snowflake, there wasn't even any frost on the grass. She didn't understand; it had always worked before.

Autumn looked down at herself, wondering if perhaps she had mistakenly put her pajama shirt on right-side-in. Instead, she noticed something white and fluttery on her floor by the head of her bed. Upon closer inspection, she found that it was tiny bits of paper. But that was odd, where did that come from? It looked almost like snow at first glance…

No, it couldn't be! She lifted her pillow to find that her paper snowflake was gone; in its place was a handful of what appeared to be black sand. She started to shake with fear. The Boogeyman! He had been in her room last night, and he had caused the nightmare and ripped up her snowflake! She looked nervously about her, worried that he might still be there, lurking in the shadows.

Finding nothing, she thought it best to start her day. She had babysitting in two hours and couldn't afford to be late. She quickly dressed and scarfed down her breakfast before dashing out the door. Autumn had no car of her own, though she did have a license, she simply couldn't afford one. Instead, she walked everywhere. This meant she had to leave early every day in order to make it on time.

Despite the unnerving morning, Autumn found the day to be quite inviting. She still wished it had snowed, but that couldn't be helped. As this thought came to mind, Autumn found herself humming the song from the movie the night before and her mood lifted. She would try again tonight.

* * *

After watching Max and Sarah until their father got home around mid-afternoon, Autumn made her way to the bank to deposit her check. When she was done, she started to head home the long way because it was such a nice day.

She took a path she knew well along bike road through the woods. During the warmer seasons, there were usually loads of bikers racing past, but on this crisp and cold afternoon, the path was deserted. Except for a young man in his late teens sitting in a tree.

Autumn didn't seem to see him as she walked past, singing a winter song. The boy didn't mind, though, he didn't expect her to see him. Indeed, he didn't seem to mind a whole lot of anything. In fact, though the weather was quite cold indeed, all he wore was a blue hoodie and tattered leggings, and his feet were bare. It was as if the cold didn't bother him one bit.

He listened as the girl walked past and caught a few words of what she was singing.

"Walking in a winter wonderland…" The words trailed off as she got further from him.

Now that was one adult he didn't mind. Ordinarily, adults didn't like his work; they didn't like the cold or the snow because it meant shoveling driveways and scraping ice off car windows. But this girl seemed to like winter and made her alright in his books, because he was the Winter Spirit, Jack Frost, Guardian of Fun.

Jack took his staff in hand, ice forming where he held it, and leaped from his perch, drifting gracefully to the ground like a snowflake. He followed the girl, walking in front of her and turning to walk backwards to face her. He wondered if he had ever known her when she was a child.

She finished her first song and moved on to the next.

"You wake up one morning, and you feel that something's new…" she sang softly.

Jack felt like he knew this song from somewhere but couldn't quite place it. It touched something inside him and it felt like the first time someone believed in him. He missed a few lines in his musing and when he focused on the words again, the girl was singing even more familiar lyrics.

"He's nipping at your nose, you can feel it in your toes, if you try to turn around, when you hear his icy sound…" she became louder at this part and much more exuberant.

"Wait a minute…" he whispered, suddenly knowing the song.

"He is sure to disappear, but you know JACK FROST IS HERE!" the girl got really loud at the end and did a happy skip, effectively walking right through Jack.

Jack halted in his tracks. This girl, this woman, had said his name with joy in her voice, as if she believed in him, but then she walked right through him as if she didn't. He had to know who she was.

Autumn had begun to skip ahead of the unseen winter spirit, but the joy her song had brought her was short lived. The Boogeyman had ripped up her snowflake, what was to stop him from doing it again tonight?

"I wish I could talk to you, Jack Frost," she called to the still air. "I wish I could see you to tell you that I want it to snow."

Jack's eyes lit up. She _did_ believe in him! So few children believed in him and here was an adult who still did! He leaped into the air and flew level with her.

"Hey, if you want to talk, I'm right here!" he called, hoping against hope that she could at least hear him.

His hopes were dashed, however, when she just looked sadly at the ground and continued walking in silence. He had to do something.

"You want snow?" he asked with a mischievous smirk. This will get her to believe, he thought. "I'll give you snow."

Jack planted his feet apart, took his staff in both hands and twirled it above his head. As soon as he began, flurries started to fall from the sky, coating the ground in crunchy white powder.

Autumn stopped in her tracks and stared open mouthed at the sky as snowflakes brushed her face like cold feathers and landed on her tongue. Then she started to laugh like she had never laughed before. For a day that had started out with crippling disappointment, it had to be one of the best she'd had in a long time.

"Jack Frost!" she cried happily. "You came!"

"You can see me?" Jack asked, coming close to her.

She merely laughed and spun in a circle with her arms wide. Jack jumped out of the way, not wanting to experience her walking through him again.

"Argh! How is it that you believe in me but you can't see me?!" he hollered in frustration.

"Jack?" Autumn called. "Where are you hiding, I want to see you!"

"I want you to see me too!" he cried. "Why can't you see me?"

"Maybe he's not real after all…" she muttered softly.

"No!" Jack cried desperately. "You can't do that! Not when you're so close!"

"Okay Jack," Autumn said, making a decision. "I've believed in you for years, and I've never seen you. I stopped believing in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Sandman, when I was younger than most. There are two people in this whole world that I've believed in the whole time, though and they are you and the Boogeyman."

Jack gasped at this. She believed in Pitch?

"I know for a fact that the Boogeyman is real because I've seen him. I've never seen you, Jack, but I still believed in you, because if the others aren't real, you have to be. Otherwise my world only holds the Boogeyman and that's too horrible a thought to imagine, and believe me I can imagine quite a bit. So please, for all that is good in this world, please be real. I _need_ to believe in something good. Just show me you're real…"

Jack thought he was going to cry. This girl had been tormented by Pitch her whole life, and as a result, lost faith in the Guardians. All but one. Him.

"I'm trying," he said. "I'm trying to make you see me but it's not working. Some part of you must believe this is just a freak snow storm and not me, because you should be able to see me."

He thought harder than he had in all his three hundred years, how was he going to make her see him. What was a fool proof way to make her see that he was real? As he cast his mind about, his eyes alighted on the freshly fallen snow and an idea formed in his mind.

Autumn, not receiving any reassurance muttered "I knew it…" and sulked off back down the path.

"No, wait!" Jack called, scooping up a handful of snow and packing it into a ball. He blew a cool breeze onto it and it turned blue. "You're sure to believe this!"

He threw the snowball right at the back of her head. It hit its mark and crumbled into the hood of her jacket.

Autumn halted, eyes widening. She turned slowly on the spot to face the way she had come. There wasn't a person in sight. But then who threw that snowball? Could it really be him?

"Jack Frost?" she asked in a whisper.

Jack laughed and answered her with another snowball, right in her face. Normally, his magic snowballs made kids want to throw some themselves, but this time, they would have the effect of making this girl see him.

Autumn cleared her eyes with a gloved hand, and when she could see again, she found she could see more than just the snow-laden bike path. There stood a boy that looked not much younger than her, wearing a hoodie and tattered brown leggings with no shoes. His hair was as white as snow and his eyes were as blue as the winter sky.

"Jack Frost!" she cried.

"Can you see me yet, or do I have to throw another snowball?" he asked.

"Jack Frost!" she yelled happily, running to him and flinging her arms around him in the biggest hug she had ever given anybody her whole life.

"You can see me!" he yelled back and hugged her in return, spinning her around.

When he set her down, her cheeks and nose were red with cold and she was beaming from ear to ear. She had never been happier to see someone and Jack had never felt this happy to be seen, not even when Jamie first saw him.

"What's your name?" he asked her. "You know mine, it's only fair."

"Autumn," she said still grinning brightly. "Autumn Aki."

"Nice to meet you Autumn Aki," Jack said, holding out his hand.

"Nice to see you, Jack Frost," Autumn returned, shaking his offered hand.

"Nice to be seen!"

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**A/N: (4,344) I hope I did the characters justice. Drop me a review and let me know. R&R!  
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	2. The Child They Missed

**A/N: Okay so I realized quite quickly that people seem to love this story and nothing has even happened yet :) So even though I had a huge case of the dreaded Writer's Block I muddled through. My Muse was a great help and he kept poking me until I finished. I went back through this chapter a couple times until I was satisfied so I really hope you like the hard work I put in. Enjoy!  
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**I don't own.  
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**Chapter 2: The Child They Missed**

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Autumn was happier than she could ever remember being. Jack Frost was real! He was real and he was standing in front of her! He was real, he was standing in front of her, and he was gorgeous! She felt her heart skip faster the longer she looked at him.

"So, Autumn," Jack said, bringing her out of her reverie. "How is it that you still believe in me? I'm not complaining, but I'm just not used to children believing in me, let alone adults."

"I don't know," Autumn shrugged. "I've believed in you since I was really young, even though nobody could tell me much about you. I looked up your name on the internet and all I could find was that you were the personification of winter and a little myth about summoning the snow."

"Summoning the snow?" Jack had never heard of such a myth.

"Yeah, it says that if you want the snow to come during the winter, you have to call for Jack Frost, that's you," she explained. "To do that, you're supposed to put a paper snowflake under your pillow and go to bed with your pajamas inside-out while thinking 'Jack Frost, come and make the snow fall.' I did that every winter since I read about it, and it worked every time. That's why I've always believed in you, because you've never failed me."

Jack laughed. "That pajama thing? I told Jamie that _years_ ago! I didn't think people would take it seriously. Kids actually _do_ that?"

"Well _I_ did, and you came every time. The morning after I did it, there would always be fresh snow on the ground."

"Weird. I mean, I sometimes get feelings that I should be in one place or another to make it snow, but…"

"That's where kids are wishing for you to come and visit! I have this friend at school who says she used to do that when she was a kid, it used to work for her too."

"Used to?" he asked.

"Yeah," she became quiet. "She stopped believing, and now she just does it for kicks and giggles, but you never come when she does it anymore."

Jack frowned. The subject of people not believing in him was a sore one, and just thinking about someone who had once believed and in him ceased to do so broke his heart. He had lost a child's faith, how many others had he lost?

"Okay," he said slowly. "Excuse me if I'm a bit slow on the uptake right now as this is a pretty foreign area for me. You said I never failed you, but you also said you didn't believe in the other Guardians, does that mean _they_ failed you?"

"Guardians?"

"Yeah, yeah. Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and Sandman," Jack clarified. "Did they fail you?"

"You mean they're actually real?" Autumn's eyes got wide. Suddenly her whole childhood got a lot more miserable; they were all real but they never came.

"Of course they're real!" Jack exclaimed not noticing the young woman's inner turmoil. "Who do you think puts presents under your tree at Christmas? Who do you think replaces your baby teeth with money? Who do you think hides the chocolate eggs around your house on Easter? And where do you think your good dreams come from?"

"I never got any presents from Santa," Autumn said, tears forming in her eyes. "I caught my mom taking my baby tooth and replacing it with a dollar once; I also caught her hiding Easter eggs around the house. And I've never had a good dream."

"But, I don't understand," Jack said, his eyes widened in horror. "The Guardians are supposed to take care of all of that. How is it that your whole life, they've missed you every time?"

"What exactly are the Guardians, Jack?" Autumn asked hearing the word a second time.

"Well it's the five of us; North, Tooth, Bunny, Sandy, and me," Jack explained. "I'm relatively new. I'm used to children believing in them and not me, but I've never met someone who believed in me and not them!"

"Yeah, well, like I said, you never failed me," Autumn muttered. "Anyway, what do you all do? Guardians of what?"

"Childhood," he said simply. "We 'keep happy their hearts, brave their souls, and rosy their cheeks.' We also 'protect with our lives, their hopes and dreams.' At least that's what the oath I took says we do, and I think we do a pretty good job of it."

"You protect us?"

"Well, children," Jack corrected.

"I was a child once, Jack," Autumn was getting really upset now. "You Guardians were supposed to protect me too. But they all failed me, not one present, egg, dollar, or good dream. All I got were crushed hopes and nightmares! The Guardians never came, and in their absence, I got the Boogeyman instead!"

Jack's eyes went wide again. "Pitch took advantage of their absence?" he asked to be sure he heard right.

"Who's Pitch?"

"Pitch Black, the King of Nightmares. Children call him the Boogeyman."

"Then yes. Pitch came all the time. Sometimes I can see him, lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to go to sleep so he can invade my mind and give me nightmares. He came last night."

"He was at your house?"

"He was in my room! I tried to call the snow last night, and he wasn't impressed."

"I didn't get the feeling that this place needed any snow," Jack said, wondering why the snowflake thing hadn't worked this time.

"That's because Pitch took the snowflake from under my pillow while I slept and tore it up. I found the pieces by my bed and black sand under my pillow."

"Wow he really hates me," Jack said almost impressed. "He's still trying to get people to stop believing in the Guardians."

"I don't think he did it to get me to stop believing in you," Autumn mused.

"Why else would he rip up the snowflake?"

"I think it was to tell me he was there and that he didn't approve of you."

"Why do you think it's so important to him that you believe?" Jack asked. "I mean, I know he hates how adults constantly tell children he's not real but…"

"I don't know, but I do know that he likes to pay me extra special attention," Autumn said sadly. "I've tried everything I can think of to keep him out and he still comes. I keep a nightlight, my bed is right on the floor, my closet door is firmly closed, and I have a dream catcher, nothing works."

"Things like that won't stop Pitch," Jack said. "Being afraid of him is what gives him the strength he needs to be really dangerous. If you're not afraid, then he can't hurt you."

"You sound like you're talking to a kid," Autumn said wryly.

"Well, I don't know how to talk to adults…"

"You look almost adult, yourself."

Jack scratched the back of his head self consciously. "I'm not really. I'm more of a kid right below the surface."

"Hey, me too!" Autumn grinned. "My mom always says I grew down instead of up. I was really mature growing up and now I'm making up for lost time."

Jack grinned too. Just then, he got an idea. "Hey, Autumn? How would you like to meet the Guardians?"

"Really?" Autumn's eyes got bright. "Is that allowed?"

"We'll find out!" Jack said joy and mischievousness dancing in his beautiful eyes. "Grab hold of me. First stop is the Warren!"

Autumn didn't hesitate to grab hold of Jack around the middle and cling tightly despite the cold he radiated. He jumped high into the air, pointing his staff skywards, and alighted on the highest branch in the surrounding trees.

"Hold on tight," he said to her with a cocky smirk. The raised his voice to the open air. "Hey, Wind!" he called. "Take me to the Warren!"

The shock of having the cold winter wind pick her and Jack up made Autumn scream and cling tighter to him, but as soon as the initial surprise wore off, she whooped in delight. Jack and Autumn soared through the air at top speed over land and sea, before dropping into a rather warm glade.

"Where are we?" Autumn asked. "It's so warm."

"We're in the Warren," said Jack wrinkling his nose at the warmth. "Home of the Easter Bunny, located in the middle of Australia."

"Australia!" Autumn was gobsmacked. How had they gotten from Maryland, USA to Australia in about two minutes?

"What do you think you're doing, Jack Frost?" came a deep voice laced with a thick Australian accent.

Jack and Autumn whirled around to face the speaker and Autumn's jaw dropped. Standing before her was the hugest bunny she had ever seen; he stood eight feet tall and had leather cuffs that went around his wrists and ankles with a strap that went over his shoulder to hold a weapon to his back. The weapon in question was a boomerang held threateningly in Jack's face.

"Have you got a few roos loose in the top paddock?" Bunny seemed to grow even larger in his anger. "You can't bring people to our sanctuaries, especially not adults like her!"

At this, Bunny's attention was drawn to the gaping mouth of the young woman. It suddenly became clear that she could see him.

"Can she see me?" Bunny asked Jack in an aside.

"Yes, and she can hear you too, Cottontail," Jack mocked.

"_You're _the Easter Bunny?" Autumn gasped. "But you're _huge_! You're not like what I imagined at all!"

"But…wait," Bunny said, confused. "You still believe in me? How old are you, kid?"

"First of all, I'm not a kid," Autumn said putting up a finger to emphasize her point. "I'm twenty years old. And second, I _didn't _believe in you until a few hours ago when Jack said you were real."

"Okay…" said Bunny, still confused. "I'm lost, you could see Frost?"

"Well it took some convincing," Jack supplied. "She believed in me but she couldn't see me until I hit her with a couple snowballs."

"What?"

Jack and Autumn could see this was getting them nowhere, and so began their story again from the beginning. Autumn told most of the story about how she lost faith in the Guardians a long time ago because they never came, and Jack jumped in at the part where they met on the bike trail.

"I was so happy that Jack was real because he was the last Guardian that I still believed in, and without him, the only thing I had left to believe in was the Boogeyman…wait, Jack what did you call him?" Autumn asked finishing the story.

"Pitch," Jack answered.

"Wait, kid," Bunny's eyes went wide. "You believe in Pitch?"

"Well, yeah," Autumn said as if it were obvious. "Who do you think has been the cause of my nightmares every other night? I can sometimes see him hiding in the shadows, and all I can see of him is his amber eyes and this sinister smile."

"You've seen him?" Bunny asked. "Describe what he looks like?"

"Bunny, you already know what he looks like," said Jack. "We've fought him."

"I want to know if she's actually seen him, yeh rango," Bunny retorted. He then looked to Autumn expectantly.

"Well, I never really got a clear look at him, but as I said before, he's got amber colored eyes. He looks like he's made from darkness, all fluid like a shadow. I've seen his shadow flit across my room so I sort of know his profile." At this, Autumn bent down and drew the image in the dirt below her feet. The drawing had sharp features and a narrow frame with the hair spiking out towards the back of the head.

"Crikey," Bunny whispered staring at the image. "She's seen him alright. This ain't good, kid."

"Why?" asked Jack, surprised. "There are loads of kids out there who have seen Pitch, like Jamie and his friends."

"No, mate, they can't see him anymore, they can't see any of us, even Jamie," said Bunny ominously. "All kids grow up, and all kids stop believing someday. And good thing, too, cos if they still believed in us, they would believe in Pitch, too."

"I don't understand," Autumn broke in. "Why is it a bad thing that I believe in him?"

"Because, kid," said Bunny. "Adults never believe. When an adult believes, their belief is worth a million kids' belief!"

"A million?!" Jack exclaimed. "But that would boost our power… no!"

"What?" Autumn asked.

"What's worse," said Bunny. "You said we missed her; her whole life, not one of us came?"

"Yes," said Jack. "She only believed in me like I said, but it was hard to get her to see me."

"This isn't good, kid," Bunny ran his claws across his boomerang absently. "We need to call the others together."

"The others?" Jack asked alarmed. "But surely this isn't that big of a deal? So what if Pitch's powers are boosted by her belief, our powers are boosted as well because she believes in us too."

"That's not what's important anymore, Frost," said Bunny distractedly. "We missed a kid; that's a problem."

"What?" Autumn was getting tired of being out of the loop. "What is going on?"

"Why is that a problem?" Jack was also confused.

"Not right now, I'll explain at the Pole," Bunny said. "We need to tell the others."

"The Pole?" Autumn asked. "The _North_ Pole?"

"That's right, kid," Bunny said smirking. "How would you like to meet Santa Clause?"

Autumn's eyes went wide. She had stopped believing years ago and now she was about to meet Santa in person, and not just some man at the mall. She grinned excitedly and nodded enthusiastically.

"Right then, off we go," Bunny finished his sentence with a thump of his foot.

Autumn gasped as a tunnel opened at the point where Bunny had thumped. She peered into it nervously. "Is it safe," she asked apprehensively.

"Of course it's safe," said Bunny.

"And one hell of a fun ride!" said Jack with light in his eyes. "Geronimo!"

With that, he jumped into the hole and his whoop of excitement could be heard echoing back. Autumn grinned. If it was fun enough for Jack, then it must be okay.

With one last look around the Warren, Autumn jumped in after the Winter Spirit, followed closely by Bunny.

Jack was right about one thing; the tunnels were one hell of a ride, but Autumn wouldn't exactly call it fun…well maybe a little. It was like those rides at amusement parks that are so wild that they're almost terrifying, but even though your legs are shaking like mad at the end, you can't wait to do it again. So Autumn wouldn't call the tunnels fun, but they were definitely exciting, even if she wanted to throw up.

As suddenly as the ride began, it was over. She was unceremoniously shot out of the tunnel at top speed and would have hit the ground hard if Jack hadn't caught her.

"Th-thanks," she said, blushing at how close their faces were.

"No problem," he said with a smirk. He taped her nose gently and it instantly went numb with cold.

"Alright kids, pull yourselves together," Bunny interrupted them. "In case you've forgotten, there's a serious matter at hand."

"Except you haven't told us what this serious matter is," Jack retorted, putting Autumn back on her feet.

"In a minute, Frostbite," said Bunny. He turned to the room they were all standing in and called out. "Hey, North! Where are you?"

It was then that Autumn noticed their surroundings. They were standing in a huge room with vaulted ceilings and workbenches around the walls with various half-formed and broken toys, and right in the middle was the largest and most impressive globe she had ever seen. All over its surface shone little yellow lights, and as she watched a few lights dimmed or brightened, some went out while new ones lit up, and way up at the top, something shone so brightly, that it reflected off of the sky lights above it.

"What is _that_?"Autumn asked in a hushed voice taking a hesitant step towards it.

"That is Globe of Belief," came a voice from behind her.

Autumn turned to see a large man wearing furs with a white beard and bright blue eyes. He stared at her for a moment in confusion, and then looked at the light at the top of the globe, and comprehension seemed to dawn on him.

"Your belief is strongest of all," he said with a thick Russian accent. "Each light represents a child who believes. That light at top of globe is you."

Autumn thought she was going to faint; Jack said he was real, and she believed him, but believing and seeing were two completely different things. She was looking at Santa Claus, _the _Santa Claus. She felt like she had to say something.

"You're Santa!" she exclaimed.

"Call me North," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "What brings you to North Pole?"

Autumn couldn't articulate a response, so Bunny stepped in.

"North, she's the kid we all missed," he said urgently. "She's never had a visit from one of us her whole life!"

"What?" North seemed suddenly distressed. "No, is not possible! I check my list _twice_!"

"Believe it, mate," said Bunny. "We need to call Tooth and Sandy."

"But is almost Christmas," North whined. "Can it not wait until New Year?"

"She's seen Pitch," Bunny said simply. "It can't wait."

North's eyes went wide at this. Bunny's word seemed to send a sense of urgency into him as he went to a machine near the globe while Jack and Autumn shared a look of confusion.

"We must call them immediately!" With that, he pressed a few buttons and threw a lever, and suddenly, a great burst of light shot out of the machine and into the sky through an open skylight. The light shone about a hundred indescribable colors and spread like waves across the sky.

It took a moment for Autumn to understand what she was seeing.

"The aurora is your messenger?" she whispered in awe.

Before anyone could answer however, an air plane made of golden sand suddenly flew in through the open skylight and suddenly disappeared, leaving a small little man that seemed to be made from the same sand. He looked around in confusion and a little question mark made of sand formed above his head.

"Just a minute, Sandy," Bunny replied. "We're still waiting on Tooth."

Autumn walked up, eyes wide. "Are you the Sandman?"

Sandy looked at her with curiosity and nodded. He held out his hand and smiled.

Autumn shook the offered hand. "I'm Autumn Aki. You don't speak do you?"

He shook his head.

"Are you deaf?"

He shook his head again.

"Then, you're just mute?"

He nodded.

"How do you communicate?"

He pointed above his head and a series of sand pictures appeared.

"Wouldn't it be easier if you knew sign language?"

Sandy's eyes went wide with excitement and his hands moved through the air at top speed. Autumn followed his hands closely and realized he was asking her a question in American Sign Language. 'Do you know ASL?'

"Yes I do," she replied. "I study it in school."

'Really?' he asked 'How good are you?'

"I like to think I'm nearly fluent."

'What made you interested in taking ASL as a subject?'

"I want to be a teacher for deaf children."

As Sandy and Autumn had their discussion, Jack, North, and Bunny watched in confusion as they could only understand what Autumn was saying.

"Did you know he knew sign language?" Jack asked Bunny.

"Nope."

Just then, they were interrupted by the sound of many fluttering wings and a distracted chattering.

"…and don't forget the little boy in Cambodia, he just lost another one, and there's a girl in Maryland who just lost her first… Oh! I'm so off schedule!"

In came the most colorful person Autumn had ever seen her whole life surrounded by what appeared to be equally colorful hummingbirds, to which she was giving instructions. Upon closer inspection, she realized they were little bird-like fairies.

"Yes, Tooth, we know you're off schedule," Bunny grumped. "We're all off schedule, but this is important."

Tooth was about to give Bunny a piece of her mind about the fact that he was probably the least thrown off by this meeting, when she was interrupted by a gasp.

"You're the Tooth Fairy!" Autumn cried. "You're beautiful!"

Tooth was halted in her tracks. She stared at the young woman before her and couldn't help but be pleased with the complement.

"Thank you," she said warmly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Autumn Aki," she replied, still staring at the Guardians surrounding her, the wonder of her surroundings only now just reaching her.

"Autumn Aki…" Tooth commented quietly. "I remember every tooth I've ever collected, and I don't remember any belonging to an Autumn Aki…"

"Neither have I seen her name on list, Naughty _or_ Nice," North confirmed.

"That's because we missed her," said Bunny.

Tooth and her fairies gasped and Sandy did a sort of silent gasp as what appeared to be firework made of golden sand exploded above his head.

"Okay, I'm still not understanding what it means that we missed her," Jack said.

"Yes, can someone please explain?" Autumn asked, desperate for some answers.

Everyone settled down a little and prepared to explain.

"It was long time ago," North began. "When Man in Moon first recruited Guardians to protect children of Earth. Destiny told Man in Moon that we four Guardians would one day miss a child."

"This was long before you were made a Guardian, Jack," Tooth explained gently. "Destiny said that because we would miss this child, the child would know only the cold and the dark."

"The cold must be Jack," Autumn put in. "And the dark must be Pitch. That makes sense."

"Destiny said that this kid would be the strongest believer of all," Bunny added. "She said that this kid would bring together all the things that are good in the world and bring about a new age, an age of peace, because this kid would have a connection to an inner strength that none but Mother Nature herself could understand."

"But we must also be careful," said Tooth. "For as strong as this child would be, they would also have an inner darkness fueled by the absence of the Guardians."

"And that darkness could mean the end of Guardians forever," North finished.

There was a lull for a moment as Autumn tried to understand.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "I'm either supposed to bring about world peace, or send everything back into the Dark Ages?"

"Pretty much," North shrugged.

"Hmm… I think I like the sound of that." There was suddenly a voice that didn't belong to any of the Guardians or Autumn. It came from the shadows and sounded like dark velvet laced with a British accent.

* * *

**A/N: ****(3,892)**** I hope you all enjoyed all that! More to come soon! R&R!  
**


	3. Making Up For Lost Time

**A/N: So the next chapter is up and just in time for Boxing Day! (For those of you who don't live in Canada, England, or Australia, Boxing Day is the day after Christmas and is considered a holiday. It's the day you get rid of all the boxes from opening presents, get it? Boxing!) Anyway, enough of my nonsense, more Pitch in this chapter, so have fun with that! Enjoy!**

**I don't own.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Making Up For Lost Time**

* * *

Autumn cried out in surprise and fear as the Guardians suddenly drew their various weapons and pointed them at the figure that was rapidly forming out of the shadows, a figure Autumn knew very well.

"The Boogeyman!" She gasped in recognition.

"Pitch!" Jack spat, leveling his staff at the figure. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just wondering where my favorite human was when she didn't come home on time," he smirked at Autumn and she hid slightly behind Jack. "So you've met the Guardians have you Autumn? Quite an interesting story they've told you isn't it?"

"What do you want with her, Pitch?" Tooth asked aggressively, her wings fluttering faster.

"The same thing you all want with her," he replied calmly. "Her belief in you gives you strength, just as it does with me."

"But there are more of us than there are of you," Bunny said with an egg bomb in one paw and a boomerang in the other.

"Ah but you are forgetting the darkness in the girl's heart because none of you were there for her when she was a child."

"I don't have darkness in me!" Autumn piped up, taking a tentative step from around Jack. She shook all over, but she held her ground.

Pitch smiled at her. He could smell her fear coming off of her in waves, it was almost intoxicating. "Don't you?" he taunted. "Do you not harbor some resentment at the fact that you never got one present from North?"

North shuffled uncomfortably.

"Or one Easter Egg?"

Bunny gripped his boomerang tightly and bared his teeth at Pitch.

"Or how about when you caught your mother replacing your tooth under your pillow, when the Tooth Fairy should have been doing that?"

Tooth's wings stopped fluttering and she alighted on the ground, her feathers drooping guiltily.

"And what about every night you went without a good dream?"

Sandy's expressive face showed an intense guilt and sadness.

"I've been the only one looking out for you Autumn," Pitch continued smugly. "I've watched over you for years and so you've always believed in me, can any of the Guardians can say the same?"

The Guardians all looked appalled at the information that Pitch had been stalking Autumn Aki her whole life while she went unnoticed to them. How had they failed her so badly? It was their job to protect the children of the world and they had missed one.

"Jack can," Autumn said defiantly despite the note of fear still in her voice. "Every time I wanted a snow day, he was there. You're right; I've always believed in the Boogeyman, but I've always believed in Jack Frost too!"

Jack smirked at this, but Pitch seemed to find this amusing too.

"So you're telling me you're not the least bit upset with the others for never being there to protect you from bad dreams and the things that go bump in the night?" he taunted.

Autumn hesitated. She _was_ upset that the Guardians had never been there, in fact, she had been trying to suppress these feelings of resentment in the light of all that she was discovering. With Pitch's comments, however, they came back full force; where had they been all these years? How could they have missed her? If it was their job to protect the children of the world, how had they overlooked the one child who needed their help most? The one child who had the King of Nightmares himself hovering over her all the time.

As if he had heard her thoughts, Pitch smirked in self-satisfaction. "You see, Autumn?" he said smoothly. "As a child you may have been able to forgive the Guardians for their transgression, but it's too late to make up for their absence now for you are no longer a child, but a woman."

Tears started to form in Autumn's eyes. It was true; Jack had said that they were the Guardians of _Childhood_, and Autumn was no longer a child and therefore, they had no obligation to help her. She didn't want to cry, but she was sad and angry and everything Pitch was saying was true, but at the same time a little voice told her he was wrong.

_Anger leads to the Dark Side._ It was from Star Wars, but still, it had a ring of truth about it.

"You're right," Autumn said to Pitch defiantly, causing him to grin in victory and the Guardians to share nervous looks. "I _am_ too old for fairy tales, and forgiveness doesn't come as easily as it once did. I _am_ upset and angry with the Guardians, but I need to be rational."

The Guardians looked at her with a glimmer of hope; none of them wanted Autumn to agree with Pitch because of what Destiny had said, but they had to hope that she wouldn't blindly follow his word. After all, he _had_ tormented her with nightmares her whole life.

"I watch over children too," she continued. "I am a babysitter, and I could never want their world to be like you would have it. You would have the world stop believing in the Guardians, but I've seen the joy on the children's faces when they find eggs hidden in the corners of the yard on Easter, or presents under their tree at Christmas. I've seen the light in their eyes when they tell me about some fantastic dream they had the night before, and I've heard their laughter as they throw snowballs at each other on snow days. And just this morning one little girl that I watch on the weekends lost her first tooth, and even though I didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy, I told her that she better keep it safe and put it under her pillow. I told her that a little fairy would come in the night and replace her tooth with a coin and she was so happy to hear that. I could never hurt the hopes and dreams of the children I care for. I could never do what _you_ do."

Autumn expected the grin on Pitch's face to slide off at her tirade, but to her surprise it only grew wider.

"Oh but you do what I do every year," he said. "You _like _to frighten people, you get satisfaction from hearing them scream, and you can hardly control your glee when they do."

The Guardians all stared at Autumn in shock.

"Is that true, Autumn?" Jack asked, feeling betrayed.

"Do you really get a kick out of scaring people?" Bunny asked, narrowing his eyes.

North also narrowed his eyes while Tooth and Sandy looked appalled.

"Of course it's true," Pitch said with a chuckle. "I've followed this girl for years, hiding in the dark corners. Believe me when I say, she really has a knack for frightening people, I'm almost jealous. She would make an excellent Princess of Nightmares."

"I would not!" Autumn declared, her fear now completely gone thanks to her anger. She turned to the Guardians. "What Pitch isn't saying is that I work in a haunted house during the month of October. I get made up in zombie costumes and jump out of dark corners to scare the pants off of patrons. And he's right; I'm pretty good at it, I get the best scares out of the whole staff. But the reality of it is; those people _want_ to be frightened. If they didn't, they wouldn't pay the entry fee."

"A haunted house?" Jack asked.

"Just a haunted house," Autumn confirmed. "I don't go around striking fear into people's hearts just for the thrill of it."

"But you _do _get a thrill, don't you Autumn?" Pitch wasn't giving up. "You can't wait to do it again at the end of the night. You have such _fun_ doing it too."

"Yeah," Autumn said, stepping forward and getting in front of Pitch. "I _like_ scaring people; it's funny when they scream and run, wetting themselves as they do. But you wanna know the best part? The people who are the most fun to scare?"

"The children?" Pitch asked.

"The grown adult _men,_" Autumn corrected. "The most satisfying scares come from _men_. Why? Because they go in saying that they won't be scared, that haunted houses are lame and not the least bit terrifying and they come to my section of the haunt and end up tripping over their friends or wetting their pants. The women are easy and fun but not nearly as entertaining. And as for the children, if they _do _come into the haunt, if by the time they get to my section they aren't clinging to their parents in fear, I still do my job and attempt to make them scream. But if they are obviously already terrified, I leave them alone. It's not my job to cause nightmares."

"Ah, but it is _my_ job," Pitch said. "The most entertaining nightmares come from life experiences and, during the month when you do your job at the haunted house, I can create the most graphic and terrifying images from their visits to _your_ haunt."

"That's _your _doing not mine," Autumn countered. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to get me to feel guilty so that I'll be vulnerable for you to persuade me to your side. Well, it's not going to work; I am far too self-aware for that. I know what my conscience tells me, and I don't do anything I think is wrong, so good luck with that. And by the way, you don't scare me anymore."

Pitch snarled. "You will be scared, Autumn Aki. You can't kill fear."

"No but I can face my fears and make them go away."

"I'm not going away, Autumn."

But Autumn had had enough. She turned her back on him and faced the Guardians. They all had looks of mixed looks of shock and fascination, though they all thought it foolish of her to turn her back on the Nightmare King. But they didn't know what was going on in her head.

Autumn had always prided herself in her ability to imagine anything with clear detail. She felt now, with everything she had seen that day, that if she imagined hard enough, what she thought of would become a reality. For her plan to work, though, she couldn't be facing Pitch, because it was just too hard to imagine he wasn't there if she was looking right at him.

'_He is not standing behind me, he isn't there,' _she told herself firmly.

The Guardians saw Pitch's anger reach a boiling point as he made to grab her and they were all about to call out a warning to Autumn when they were all shocked into silence as Pitch's hand passed through her unfelt.

He and the Guardians gasped in surprise.

Pitch pulled his hand back. "No!" he cried in frustration. "I know you believe in me, you can't just stop believing whenever you want!"

But Autumn couldn't hear him; she kept her eyes trained on the Guardians, trying not to notice how they were all looking at the same spot in shock.

"You win this round, Guardians," Pitch ground out. "But I will return, and I _will_ have my Dark Ages back."

With that, he disappeared into a shadow.

The Guardians all looked back at Autumn and stared with their mouths open.

"Is he gone now?" she asked.

Jack, Bunny, and North nodded with their mouths open, while Sandy and Tooth just had looks of pure confusion plastered across their faces.

"What the bloody hell just happened, kid?" Bunny asked.

"He went _through_ you!" Tooth gasped.

"And yet you believe in him," North added.

"I have a good imagination," Autumn said simply. "Jack said that he can be seen if kids believe in him. Well I figured if I thought about him not existing hard enough, I could make him invisible to me, at least for awhile."

"You're amazing, kid!" Bunny exclaimed. "I'm not sure I like what you do for fun, but…"

"I do the haunted house because it pays well, the entertainment factor is just a bonus," Autumn said sternly. "It's my job. One of them anyway. I have three others that I do all year."

"You babysit," Jack supplied.

"Yes, I look after children during the day when their parents are out at work," Autumn nodded. "Weekday mornings I look after these eight-year-old twin boys because their mother works early and I have to get them ready for school, they never believed in North because they're Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas, but they still believe in Tooth and Bunny. Then there is this wonderful seven-year-old girl I watch after school until her parents get home, she started writing her Christmas wish list on Friday. And then there's the two I watch on weekends, a one-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, she just lost her first tooth today, and before then she had never heard of Tooth, but she believes now."

"And what about me?" Jack asked hopefully. "Do any of them believe in me?"

"I don't know…" Autumn said sadly. "They've never mentioned you."

Jack looked crestfallen.

"I can tell them about you," she offered.

He brightened. "Really? You'd do that for me?"

"Of course," Autumn said blushing slightly. "I owe you."

"And we owe you, Autumn Aki," North said, interrupting. "We have missed child, and it cannot stand! We are Guardians and we protect the children!"

"But I'm not a child," Autumn said sadly.

"But you're on the globe, kid," Bunny said. Autumn found that she didn't mind the way Bunny kept calling her "kid"; it wasn't belittling, it was more of a term of endearment. If anybody else were to call her it, though, she would be having words with them.

Sandy nodded enthusiastically. He started signing and putting up sand images at the same time so that it was hard for Autumn to concentrate on what he was saying. 'You're light is the brightest on the globe so child or not, we will watch over you. It's our duty and it's long overdue.'

"If you have any baby teeth," Tooth offered. "You can put them under your pillow tonight and I'll be sure to collect them."

"I never kept my baby teeth," Autumn said sadly. "They're gone."

"Oh no!" she cried. "They hold all the most important memories of your childhood."

"Why is that a problem?" Autumn asked. "I remember all the bits that are important."

"But there might be a clue as to how we missed you."

"Oh…" Autumn trailed off thinking. "You collect baby teeth…" she pondered.

"Yes…?" Tooth wondered where this was going.

"_Just_ baby teeth?"

"Well, what would I do with adult teeth, even if adults actually believed in me?"

"I'm just saying, if the combination of twenty-eight lost baby teeth add up to all the memories of child hood, wouldn't other teeth that are also removed but much later on also hold memories?"

"I hope you're not thinking of knockin' out some of your adult teeth, kid" Bunny said, not following.

"No, Bunny, I'm talking about wisdom teeth," Autumn said.

"Wisdom teeth!" Tooth's eyes widened and her wings fluttered excitedly. "I've never gotten to collect wisdom teeth before! They must be magnificent, always removed before they can properly grow in so they wouldn't have a speck of plaque or any cavities or anything!"

Jack burst out laughing at Tooth's excitement and was quickly followed by North and Bunny.

"They would hold _all _the memories in just four teeth," Tooth gushed, not paying attention to the male Guardians' laughter. "They've been there since the very beginning and they would hold even _more_ memories than usual, things that come _after_ childhood! And they would be so white and sparkly! Do you really have wisdom teeth still?"

Tooth looked like she was going to reach into Autumn's mouth to do a dental examination right away, but she put up a hand to stop her.

"I've had them removed already," she said. "But I kept them."

"You kept them!" Tooth exclaimed happily, flying in a giddy loop. "She kept them, she kept them!"

"So we heard," Bunny said holding his ears against the high pitched squeals coming from Tooth.

"Why did you keep the teeth?" Jack asked Autumn.

"I don't know, exactly," she said, trying to think back on it. "I just got this odd feeling that they would be important for something."

"You should never ignore instinct," North put in. "Is very important that Tooth get these teeth. We must get to bottom of why Guardians miss child."

"Alright, I'll put them under my pillow tonight," Autumn decided.

"I think someone should look after her tonight," said Bunny. "It ain't safe for her s'long as Pitch knows about Destiny's prophecy."

"I'll look after her," Jack said. He turned to Autumn. "If that's alright with you."

Autumn blushed again and tucked a loose strand of ebony hair behind her ear. "That's fine with me, Jack," she muttered.

Bunny smirked, the only one to notice Autumn's affections for the Winter Spirit, including Jack himself.

"Great, that's settled," Jack said, twirling his staff in one hand. "Time to take you home, Autumn!"

* * *

Autumn felt a strange excitement bubbling within her as she put the four wisdom teeth under her pillow.

Jack had flown her home on the wind and it was pretty late when they arrived. Luckily, her mother worked late on weekends and had not yet returned home so there were no awkward questions as to where she was.

It had taken her awhile to remember where she had put the teeth, and while she was looking, Jack started to rifle through her stuff. It was very distracting.

"What's this?" he asked, just as she finished putting the teeth under her pillow.

Autumn looked up absently to see Jack with one of her sketch books in his hand. Her eyes widened in mortification.

"No!" she made a grab for it, but he danced out of the way and perched himself on her dresser, too high up for her to reach. "Jack, don't," she pleaded.

"Why? What's wrong?" he asked opening the book and flipping through it. "Oh wow, Autumn! These are amazing!"

"Jack, please give it back, people aren't supposed to see those," Autumn cried.

"Why not?" he asked, finally relenting and giving the book back. "They're so good, they're almost like photographs."

"They're not ready to be seen," she explained. "Only finished products may be seen in the art world, not doodles and unfinished sketches, it's embarrassing."

"Doodles? Embarrassing?" Jack was confused. "Why should you be embarrassed; those don't look like unfinished products to me."

"Well they are," Autumn said. She took the sketch book from him and returned it to the shelf from which it came. "If you want to look at some of my art, here," she grabbed a binder off the shelf and handed it to him.

Jack took it and started flipping through laminated full color pieces that took his breath away. Landscapes, portraits, and a few that looked like they came straight out of her imagination.

"These are fantastic!" he exclaimed. "You should do this for a living!"

"I've sold a couple and one of them one an award at an art show," Autumn admitted. "But I like just doing it for fun, and sometimes I give them to my friends as gifts for their birthdays or Christmas."

"You have a real talent," he said.

She blushed and looked away modestly. "Thanks."

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

"I'm gonna go find something to eat," Autumn said finally. "I'll be in the kitchen."

She left the room leaving Jack to himself. He put the binder back on the shelf and took another book down; it was a small little thing with childish writing on the front that spelled "Autumn's Diary". He had an intense curiosity as to what sorts of things a young Autumn would write about in her dairy, but that was one line he wouldn't cross in his rifling; a girl's diary was sacred.

As he went to put it back, he fumbled it and it fell open at his feet. Quickly swooping down to pick it up, he spotted his own name in messy writing in the middle of the page. Curiosity overcame him and he found himself reading the passage from some eleven years ago.

_Dear Dairy,_

_Today I found out about someone called Jack Frost. He's a winter spirit that makes the snow fall. Mommy said that he's just an expression, but I know that all the things that people imagine come from somewhere. I'm going to see if I can get Jack Frost to make it snow tomorrow. Maybe it will be a snow day and I can stay home and go sledding all day!_

Jack stared at the short passage in awe. Almost all of the passages were like that; short, one paragraph entries. His eyes alighted on the next entry.

_Dear Diary,_

_Jack Frost came! He's real! He made it snow so much that I don't have to go to school! I'm going to spend the whole day sledding on my crazy carpet!_

He smiled at the excitement that was evident in the rushed handwriting. His heart warmed at the words "_He's real_"; they just made him so happy that by one snowfall, he had gained a believer. His smile faded, however, when he took in the words of the next entry.

~_Dear Diary,_

_The Boogeyman came back last night. Mommy says he's not real, but this time I saw him when I woke up. I had a really bad dream, too. It started out with me watching "Hercules" on TV, but then the Hydra with the three heads jumped out of the TV and chased me around the house. I could hear somebody laughing, and when I woke up, there he was. I couldn't see him all the way, because he was in the shadows, but he has gold eyes and a smile like the Cheshire Cat._

Jack scowled at the little book in his hands and started flipping to earlier entries, only to find a drawing of a rabbit with little eggs all around it taking up the whole page and on the page next to it was another entry with far sloppier writing. He read;

~_Dear Diary,_

_Tomorrow is Easter and this time I'm going to catch the Easter Bunny! I wonder how come he leaves chocolate eggs, because bunnies don't lay eggs. Maybe it's not actually eggs, maybe it's magic bunny poop, and magic bunnies poop chocolate…_

Jack had to stuff his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing at the last entry imagining the look on Bunny's face. The grin fell off his face at the next entry, though;

~_Dear Diary,_

_The Easter Bunny isn't real! I saw Mommy leaving chocolate eggs all over the house, he's not real! I thought that one of them had to be real, but they're not! None of them are! There's no Santa, no Tooth Fairy, no Sandman, and NO EASTER BUNNY! There's just the Boogeyman and the nightmares!_

That entry nearly broke Jack's heart, and it was then that he noticed the little scribble at the bottom of her drawing of the Easter Bunny; "_Bunnies don't lay eggs! That's just stupid!"_

"What are you doing?" Autumn's voice came from the doorway.

Jack jumped and dropped the diary. "I-I…uh…" he stammered.

Autumn's eyes found the book on the floor and they widened in chagrin. "You read my diary?"

"I-I didn't mean to at first," he said picking it up and closing it swiftly. "It just fell open and—"

"And you thought you'd go snooping?" Autumn was beside herself. She snatched the little book from his hands.

"No, I just… I saw my name written and…" Jack quickly realized that he didn't really have a good enough reason to have been snooping through her diary of all things, but was shocked when her face softened slightly.

She looked down at the book in her hands. "This is from when I was little," she said softly. "I got it for my ninth birthday and I wrote in it every day. I documented every one of my nightmares, hoping that when I was older I could make sense of them."

Jack frowned. "I'm sorry I read it, I should have just put it back."

"No, it's fine…" Autumn sighed. She held the book out to him. "Here; you can read it if you want. Maybe Sandy can make sense of it; I couldn't."

"Why?" Jack couldn't figure out quite what he was asking. Maybe he wondered why there was a need to make sense of the dreams. Nightmares where just bad dreams, weren't they?

As if she had read his mind, Autumn answered. "All dreams have meaning. There's a reason we dream the things we do, they are our subconscious trying to tell us something. Or at least that's what I thought they were when I started to write this. Now, maybe Sandy can help me figure out why Pitch has zeroed in on me. Why _me _specifically? Of all the kids in the world, he happens to choose the one the Guardians missed? I don't buy that, there's something else at work here."

"Maybe Pitch is the one who did it in the first place," Jack offered. "Maybe he somehow blocked you from the other Guardians?"

"Maybe…" Autumn was not convinced. "Just get that to Sandy in the morning. I have to go to bed now or I'll never be able to focus on the twins in the morning, or my classes after that or the Stephanie in the afternoon."

"That sounds like a full schedule," Jack said, eyes wide. "You want a snow day instead?"

"No!" Autumn put up her hands. "The semester is almost over, and I need to prepare for finals. If you make a snow day, I'll have to look after Stephanie all day instead of going to school where I can actually focus."

"Alright, alright," Jack said holding up his hands in defeat. "You go be un-fun and grown up."

Autumn rolled her eyes as Jack left the room to let her get changed for bed. She let him come back in when she was done.

"Are you going to watch me sleep all night, or something?" she asked, blushing.

"Maybe," Jack said smirking. "Probably not 'cause that would be creepy. I might catch a few Z's myself, but don't worry, I'm a light sleeper, so if Pitch shows up, I'll take care of him for you."

Autumn blushed even more but smiled in appreciation. "Thank you."

"Sure, no problem," Jack said, getting comfortable on her window ledge, his staff over one shoulder and his hands in the pocket of his blue hoodie. He propped one bare foot on the ledge and allowed the other to dangle freely, as he looked out the misty window that was quickly frosting over.

Autumn found herself staring at him intently, amazed at his beauty, as her eyes slowly drifted closed.

As she fell asleep a river of golden dreamsand drifted in through the window Jack was occupying. He looked up in surprise to see Sandy smiling silently from the other side of the glass. Jack lifted the window open to converse with the little golden man.

"Hey, Sandy, what're you doing here?"

Sandy smiled and pointed at Autumn and the dreamsand now floating over her head in explanation.

"Making up for all the years missed?" Jack asked.

Sandy nodded sadly.

"Oh," Jack said, remembering. "She told me to give you this."

He handed the Sandman Autumn's diary. Sandy looked at Jack in confusion.

"She said that she recorded all of her nightmares in this diary. She hopes that with your help, she can figure out why Pitch singled her out."

Sandy nodded and looked reverently at the little book, before putting it away in an inside pocket of his shirt. Then he nodded to Jack in farewell and flew away into the night to bring good dreams to others who needed them.

Not five seconds had passed before Sandy was replaced by Tooth, who had come to collect Autumn's wisdom teeth personally.

She replaced all four teeth with a whole twenty dollar bill. Jack suspected it was to make up for the twenty-eight teeth she had missed.

"They're so white and pristine!" Tooth gushed quietly. "I can't wait to get them back to the Tooth Palace!"

With that she waved farewell to Jack and flew back out the window at top speed.

Jack sighed in exhaustion and closed the window behind her and returned to his earlier position on the ledge. He watched Autumn dream for awhile; it was probably her first good dream ever.

The little golden sand figures in her dream seemed to be of her and Jack. They were having a snowball fight, but then Jack leaped into the air and hovered on the wind out of her reach, but then Autumn jumped up into the air and flew circles around him before hitting him in the head with a snowball. They then abandoned their snowball fight to race each other through the air.

Jack found the dream to be very soothing, and he could tell they were both laughing in her even though it was silent. It gave off a sense of peace. Autumn finally had something good to believe in and it made her smile in her sleep. He found himself drifting off as he watched the young woman sleep, falling into a dream of his own that seemed to match hers.

His last conscious thought, as he fell asleep, was thinking there was no way this girl would bring back the Dark Ages; she was just too good.

* * *

**A/N: (5,000) So there were some feels in that chapter, huh? I hope you liked it, remember; R&R!**


	4. Fighting the Darkness Within

**A/N: So there is an angst warning in this chapter, lots of feels and I am not ashamed :D! Well I hope you all love it and give me lots of love when you're done!  
**

**I don't own!  
**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Fighting the Darkness Within**

* * *

Autumn woke up feeling happier than she could ever remember being. So this is what it's like to have a good dream, she thought.

It was dark except for the nightlight at the other end of the room, but that was to be expected considering what time it was. She looked at the alarm clock on her end table to confirm; 5:27 am. She had woken up a good half hour before she was supposed to, but she didn't feel tired. She looked around the room to see Jack still sitting on her window sill, fast asleep with his head resting on the glass, his mouth open slightly, his breath frosting the window pane. He had his staff over one shoulder and his arms were wrapped around it like it was his teddy bear.

She sat for a moment and tried to enjoy the remnants of her dream. She had never before had a good dream and it was the most thrilling experience she had ever had. It may not have been real, but she couldn't help but be exhilarated by her flight around the world with Jack. Granted, she had done that for real, but in her dream she wasn't clinging to Jack for fear of falling, she was flying alongside him.

"What a delightful little dream you were having," said a soft voice from the shadows.

The nightlight flickered and died as Autumn's heart rate kicked up a notch in fear. She knew that voice, but she refused to look in the direction from which it was coming; she didn't want him to know that she still believed in him. Instead, she looked to Jack, wondering if he would wake up at the sound of Pitch's voice, but he slept on. So much for being a light sleeper.

"I wouldn't count on him to wake, Autumn," Pitch said softly. "Because you aren't."

That comment threw her so much that she snapped her head around to look at him.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, you're asleep," he replied with a satisfied grin. "Meaning you're in my world now."

A drop of cold fear slid down her spine at his words. In her musing she must have fallen back to sleep, only this time she had fallen into another nightmare.

"I knew you still believed in me," he continued. "That's a very fascinating talent you have; to make yourself believe I wasn't real. Very clever of you."

"What makes you think I believe in you?" Autumn challenged.

"You can see me and you're having a conversation with me; that is how I know."

"When I'm dreaming, everything is real," she countered. "I don't believe in dragons but I've dreamed of them. You're not real."

"You've seen me, you can't deny my existence," Pitch seethed. "If you believe in the Guardians then you must believe in me."

"WHY SHOULD I?" Autumn yelled. Jack didn't even twitch, confirming Pitch's statement that she was, in fact, dreaming.

Pitch was taken off guard by Autumn's sudden outburst. "What?"

"Why should I believe in you? Why should I do what you want? That's why you're here isn't it? You want me on your side to fulfill that prophecy."

"I've been here your whole life, and where have the Guardians been? You would throw your lot in with them when they left you to—"

"To suffer _your_ nightmares," Autumn interrupted. "Why did you have to follow me my whole life? I would have been happier without you!"

Silence rang out with her angry jab and suddenly the room dissolved from around her and she was standing in a dark fog. The shadows moved about her turbulently so there was only just enough light to see Pitch standing six feet from her, his amber eyes glowing in the dark. Her level of fear increased again.

"You may have been happier, but you would not have been as strong as you are now," Pitch replied softly, sounding almost hurt.

"Strong? What have you got to do with strength?" she was taken aback by the emotion she heard in his voice, but she refused to be taken in; it had to be a trick to get her on his side. "You walk around making people scared, replacing their dreams with nightmares. You have nothing to do with strength."

"Oh don't I?" he countered. "If you had nothing to fear, you would have been hurt by all the things that would be best left avoided. Fear makes you wary of the things in life that can do far more damage than a few nightmares. You should be thanking me."

Autumn staggered backward. _This kid would have a connection to an inner strength that none but Mother Nature herself could understand._ Bunny's voice echoed in her head repeating the words of the prophecy. If that strength was symbolic of Pitch, then that meant she had some kind of connection to him. The thought made her shiver involuntarily.

"I won't be thanking you for the years of psychological torture you put me through. And no, I will not be helping you bring back the Dark Ages, so stop trying to get me on your side!"

For a moment Pitch looked disappointed; his eyes widened in something akin to anguish before narrowing in fury.

"Fine," he spat. "I thought we might try this the easy way, but evidently that isn't going to work."

As he spoke, the darkness around him roiled and Autumn's anxiety kicked into high gear.

"W-what are you d-doing?" she stammered, staggering backward.

"If you won't come to my side willingly, I'll take you by force. I hope you enjoy being my Princess of Nightmares."

Autumn's eyes widened in horror as masses of dark figures formed from the shadows and swarmed toward her.

"W-what are those things?" she asked suddenly paralyzed by fear. She couldn't move.

"These are my fearlings, they will help you see things my way," he said menacingly.

"Y-you can't do that," Autumn tried very hard to make her legs move, but they were rooted to the ground. "This is just a dream, it's not real. Nightmares can't hurt me for real."

"Nightmares can't, but fearlings can, my dear," Pitch advanced as he spoke and Autumn still couldn't move. "Especially since you've missed one thing."

"W-what?"

"I'm standing over you right now as you sleep."

Her eyes widened in realization. If he was in her room, then Jack would surely wake up if he heard a sound. Maybe if she tried to wake up… She reached her right hand to her left arm and pinched hard. It hurt, but she didn't wake, so she tried to slap herself.

Pitch laughed. "This is a lucid dream, Autumn; you won't be able to wake that easily. And in case you think your little Guardian friend can help you, you should know Jack Frost is still fast asleep, and he'll stay that way until your alarm clock goes off in twenty minutes, but by then he'll be too late."

The thought of a sound waking Jack gave her an idea.

"I can't wake up, fine," she challenged. "But you know all about my sleep habits; maybe you'll remember that I talk in my sleep."

Pitch's eyes widened. "No! Fearlings, attack!"

The fearlings all flowed toward her as one black mass just as Autumn took a deep breath to scream as loud as she could.

"JACK!" The name escaped her mouth just as the fearlings attacked, swarming into her open mouth, ears, nose, and eyes, surrounding her in a heaving black mass of darkness.

Jack nearly fell off his perch in surprise at hearing his charge cry out in her sleep. He righted himself quickly and stood in a fighting stance, his staff at the ready, to find Pitch staring at him from out of the gloom.

Before he could act, Jack's staff was ripped from his grasp by a Nightmare as another knocked him down and pinned him to the floor with its hooves.

Autumn continued to shout in her sleep, and Jack knew that her mother had not come home in the night as he had not heard her come in, so there was no one to hear the girl scream. He struggled desperately to push the Nightmare off of him, but it was no use without his staff.

"Leave her alone, Pitch," he spat.

"But I'm having so much fun with her, Jack," Pitch replied with a smirk. "Now that you're awake to watch the show, let's have her join us, shall we."

At his words, Autumn's shouting ceased and she sat up. When she opened her eyes, they were like empty pits of darkness and that darkness spread outward until her skin was dark grey and her hair, which was already black, seemed to swallow all light and hung in her face. The whites of her eyes were gone and her pupils had expanded to engulf the whole of her eyes. The effect made her look possessed.

Jack gasped in horror. He had failed her. How had he failed so miserably that Autumn was now a thing of Nightmares? Pitch was right; he _did_ make a mess wherever he went. His eyes filled up with tears at the loss of his friend.

"That's right, Jack," Pitch said gloatingly. "Your precious Autumn Aki is now my Princess of Nightmares. She'll be like a daughter to me and together we will bring back the Dark Ages. We will put an end to the Guardians, starting with the only one who ever mattered to her: _You._"

The Nightmare let him up and Jack scrambled out of the way, staring at Autumn in horror.

"I'll give you a sporting chance of course," he continued tossing Jack's staff to him. "Though I doubt you'll use this on her."

Jack took his staff in hand and pointed it at Pitch.

"Change her back!" he shouted, the temperature in the room dropping several degrees.

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't do that, Jack," Pitch chuckled darkly. "You see, this transformation is permanent; once the fearlings have taken hold, they will never let go. I should know; it happened to me."

Jack's eyes widened at the thought that Pitch wasn't always like this, but he couldn't focus on that; there had to be a way for Autumn to be changed back.

"I can see you don't believe me," Pitch went on. "Well maybe this will convince you: Autumn, dear," she looked up at him with blank eyes. "Put an end to Jack Frost."

Autumn turned her dark stare on Jack and stood from her bed, stepping toward him. Jack's expression became pleading.

"Autumn, listen to me, I know you're in there somewhere," he said backing away. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Then this will be very easy," when she spoke, her voice seemed to be slightly deeper with a touch of a British accent to it, as if she had a part of Pitch inside her.

"No, Autumn you have to remember," Jack begged. "We're friends, I've always been there for you, remember? Remember all the Snow Days? Remember all the fun you had on the crazy carpet?"

"I remember the Guardians let me down, so I will have my revenge," Autumn replied hollowly. She raised an arm and seemed to grab hold of the darkness of the early morning and make it solid in her hand forming it into a spear made entirely of shadows.

Even Pitch was surprised at this action; even _he _didn't have powers like these!

"But, I never let you down, Autumn," Jack protested, eyeing the spear with trepidation. "I was always there when you wanted it to snow. Remember the snowflake thing? You did it every year since you were nine and I came every time. Think about this; what reason would you have to hurt me?"

"I know you want to stop me from bringing back the Dark Ages, but I won't be stopped," she replied. "You changed your mind about me the minute the other Guardians told you Destiny's prophecy; you were all ready to be my friend but then the part about the darkness within came up and I saw the way you looked at me, like you wondered if I was truly on your side."

"No, I didn't," Jack asserted. "Autumn, I—"

"But now I'm not on your side," she continued, not listening to Jack's attempts to calm her. She raised the spear and prepared to bring it down on the winter spirit. "Goodbye, Jack Frost."

"I won't fight you, Autumn," Jack said desperately. He dropped his staff to the floor and hoped for a miracle.

Pitch grinned in anticipation. This was it, the moment he had been waiting for; the end of Jack Frost.

Autumn started to bring the spear down when suddenly a song began to play behind her, halting the motion.

She cocked her head to the side in confusion; the sound was familiar and comforting and reminded her of flying and happiness and a sort of warmth that is nostalgic. She turned to investigate the source of the music and found that it was coming from her radio alarm clock. It was playing a song that sang of her childhood; the main theme of the _Harry Potter _series, _Hedwig's Theme._

The music spoke of hours spent reading the books over and over, of midnight premiers and re-watching the movies so many times that she memorized them, of waiting all summer after she turned eleven for a letter telling her she was a witch, of crying over the deaths of fictional characters, and of lamenting the end of her childhood when the eighth movie's credits rolled. This was the sound of her childhood and it was calling to her from beyond the depths of darkness in which she had drowned.

Jack took advantage of her hesitation and tried reasoning with her again.

"Autumn, think about this for a second. Why would you want the Dark Ages back? What about all those children you look after? You love those kids; do you really want them to fear of you?"

She turned back to Jack, anguish in her eyes. "The children…?" she whispered.

"Come now, Autumn," Pitch interjected. "You _love_ to frighten people, you must remember that."

The memory of jumping out from behind a wall in zombie make-up and snarling at the people who walked in on her territory as they screamed and fell over each other in terror came to the surface of her thoughts. She remembered hardly containing her laughter as she attempted to stay in character to frighten the next people who happened across her.

"I remember…" Autumn spoke as if half asleep. "I remember scaring people… their fear was very amusing."

"No, Autumn, that was an acting job for a haunted house," Jack cried desperately. "You would never scare people who weren't looking to be scared. Last night you said you would never join Pitch, that causing nightmares wasn't what you were about. What happened to that?"

"_It's not my job to cause nightmares_…" Autumn quoted herself.

"It is now," Pitch insisted. "You can't resist the fearlings, Autumn."

But Autumn wasn't listening anymore; she had gotten lost in a memory.

* * *

"Autumn, will Santa really come and bring me presents?" asked a five-year-old Sarah.

Autumn stalled in answering, making sure that baby Max wasn't going to crawl off anywhere. She knew that Santa Claus wasn't real, but that didn't mean she had to crush the dreams of this adorable little girl.

"Of course he'll come," she said. "He'll come down the chimney and leave gifts under the tree and fill your stocking with toys and treats. But only if you're on the 'Nice List'. Are you on the 'Nice List', Sarah?"

"I'm nice!" Sarah insisted.

"You haven't done anything naughty, have you?"

"No way!"

"Then Santa will definitely bring you presents."

* * *

Autumn let herself into the house of the eight-year-old twin boys, Hunter and Ryan, who were already in the middle of their morning argument.

"Why would you say that?" Hunter shouted at his twin. "Of course he's real!"

"No he's not, it's just a fairy tale," Ryan countered.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Autumn interrupted, standing between the brothers. "Boys, what seems to be the trouble here?"

"Ryan says there's no such thing as the Easter Bunny!" Hunter tattled.

"Well there's not," Ryan yelled back. "He's fake!"

"No he's not!" Hunter hollered. "Autumn, tell Ryan the Easter Bunny is real."

Autumn thought frantically; she didn't want to tell Hunter that the Easter Bunny wasn't real, but if Ryan was ready to know that he wasn't, why should she keep it up with him? She would have to handle the two of them in a different manner.

"Okay, boys," she said. "Listen closely. You both believe in God, right?"

The boys nodded.

"And what proof do you have that he's real?"

"Because we have faith," Ryan said proudly.

"Okay, then. Ryan, how would you feel if I told you that God wasn't real?"

"But he is real!" he cried.

"Exactly my point; you don't like it when someone tells you that something you believe in isn't real, do you?"

Ryan looked down at his feet, knowing where this was going. He shook his head mutely.

"It doesn't feel good, does it?"

"No…" he mumbled.

"No it doesn't. So from now on, you'll let people believe in what they want to and don't tell them their faith is fake. Agreed?"

"Okay," Ryan sighed. He turned to his twin. "Hunter, I'm sorry I said the Easter Bunny wasn't real. It wasn't very nice."

"It's okay," Hunter said, hugging his brother. "I forgive you."

"There, much better," Autumn said, relieved that her strategy worked. "Now why don't you two get your breakfast and eat at the table peacefully."

Ryan instantly went to the kitchen to get his cereal for breakfast, but Hunter lagged behind, obviously wanting to talk to Autumn without his brother overhearing.

"Autumn," he began tentatively. "Is the Easter Bunny really real?"

Autumn took a deep breath and thought out her words carefully. "Hunter, believing in the Easter Bunny is like believing in God; you can't see him, but if you have faith, then he's real for you."

"Does that mean that he's real for me because I believe but he's not real for Ryan because he doesn't?" Hunter asked, trying to make sense of everything Autumn just said.

"It means whatever you want it to mean," Autumn said. "Now why don't you get your breakfast?"

* * *

These two memories stood out amongst the others in Autumn's mind, coming to the surface in an attempt to make her hear her conscience. They were the two times she had to tell a child something was real even though she, herself, didn't believe. She had worked hard to keep their belief alive.

_Why?_ The voices of a thousand fearlings whispered in her head. _Why should you waste so much energy on making children believe in something that isn't real?_

_But they are real,_ Autumn countered. _I met them. The Guardians are real._

_But they were never there for you,_ they reminded her.

_Why should that matter? _She asked, wondering why everyone thought that was so important. _They were there for them._

_Don't you want revenge?_ They tried to appeal to her darker side.

_I'm not that sort of person, _Autumn replied with disgust.

She could still hear Jack and Pitch trying to get through to her while the music of her childhood continued to play in the background—had it really only been a minute since the radio turned on? It felt like hours—their voices sounded muffled, like she was hearing them through a window, but she wasn't really paying attention to them anymore; she was trying to force her way to the surface of the darkness.

She was struggling with the fearlings; they were very strong, but if she fought hard enough, maybe she could push through and fight them off. It was slow going, like swimming through tar. With every motion, a fearling would grab hold of her and arrest the movement, but she fought harder and forced herself free.

_You cannot escape us, Autumn Aki, _the fearlings hissed. _We will take every part of your soul and reshape it into a vessel for our own residence. You will become like Kozmotis Pitchiner, you will become a thing of nightmares and bring back the Dark Ages._

_No!_ Autumn protested. _No, no, no, no, no!_

_Yes, you can't resist. Give us back our Dark ages, Autumn Aki!_

"I WON'T!" the words flew from her lips interrupting Jack and Pitch's argument. "I won't become a Nightmare Princess! I won't!"

At these words, the darkness in Autumn's skin, eyes, and hair flew out and away from her back towards Pitch. Back from whence it came as if frightened of the small young woman it attempted to control. The black swarm seemed endless but finally the last of it returned to Pitch and the darkness of the early morning diminished considerably. She stood alone in the middle of the room covered in a cold sweat and the two spirits stared in awe from either side of her.

"But that's impossible," Pitch uttered.

"I knew you could do it," Jack whispered.

Autumn suddenly felt crowded and dirty. She felt like she could shower for a year and she still would feel the stain of the dark thoughts the fearlings put in her head. She looked around the room, surprised to find it in tact; for some reason she thought it should have been a disaster.

The music from her radio came to an end and she realized that she had to get ready for work. Such a trivial thought in the wake of everything that just happened to her, but she needed to shower and eat breakfast and leave to watch Hunter and Ryan, then she had school, and then she had to watch Stephanie, and only then would she be able to allow herself to dwell on what happened. It probably wasn't healthy, but she had responsibilities.

"Get out," she whispered.

Jack and Pitch wore identical expressions of shock and confusion.

"Autumn, what—?" Jack started.

"You can't order me—" Pitch began.

"I said _get out!_" Autumn interrupted them both and her eyes flashed back to black for a moment, making them take a wary step back from her.

Pitch smirked, obviously pleased with his handiwork even though everything hadn't gone quite according to plan.

"I shall take my leave, Autumn," he said smoothly. "Jack," He added to the winter spirit. And with those parting words, he left, sinking into the shadows, his Nightmares following close behind.

"Autumn…" Jack said quietly.

"I need to be alone right now, Jack," she said softly. "I'll see you later this afternoon, around five."

"Are you sure you don't need me to stick around for a bit?"

"I'm fine, Jack," she insisted. "Please go."

"Okay…" he sighed. He picked up his staff, opened the window and flew out in a swirl of snowflakes.

Autumn crossed the room and closed the window behind him, then flicked on the light to prepare for the day.

As she stepped into the shower a minute later, she allowed herself to dwell for just a moment on what it felt like to be consumed by darkness. Pitch had said that it was impossible to fight off the fearlings, and yet she had done it. The fearlings were gone and now she knew that Pitch could never control her that way.

But something bothered her. That feeling she got when she was about to run Jack through with the spear… it was there when she told them to get out. She had felt a surge within her, as if some of the darkness had remained.

She ran her head under the warm water and breathed slowly, as if meditating. She searched within herself, in that place in her mind where the fearlings had cornered her. She was scared of what she would find, but she needed to look, just in case.

Something dark opened luminescent eyes and grinned at her with malice.

Autumn gasped and flung her eyes wide, not caring about the water dripping in and stinging them. There was one fearling left. It couldn't control her on its own but she knew it would try to influence her when she was at her most vulnerable. She had to tell the Guardians.

* * *

**A/N: (4,095) Ooooh! Invasion of the fearlings. I hope I put enough imagery in, if you were wondering, I've been having a lot of fun with that lately :) Anyway, you know the drill! R&R!  
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	5. Memories Lost and Found

**A/N: So a longer wait than usual for this one, but well worth it as a lot is revealed in this chapter. More of Autumn's diary is revealed as well as a shocking discovery. This chapter also comes with a FEELS warning so yeah... Enjoy!  
**

**I own nothing.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Memories Lost and Found**

* * *

Jack flew on the wind as fast as he could, desperate to get to North and tell him what had happened. It was against his better judgment that he even left Autumn's side at all, but in her current state, it was best not to argue with her. If he was being honest, the dark look in her eyes when she ordered him and Pitch out of her house had frightened him more than Pitch ever had.

…_As strong as this child would be, they would also have an inner darkness fueled by the absence of the Guardians…_

…_And that darkness could mean the end of Guardians forever…_

The words from Destiny's prophecy rang through Jack's head like a warning bell. What if this was the darkness that Destiny had warned them about? The fearlings had fed on Autumn's resentment at being left out all these years, thus fueling the darkness. Could she really mean the end of the Guardians? Jack couldn't believe that, he _wouldn't_ believe that! There had to be a way to fix this.

He shot through the skylight of North's workshop at the Pole, still at top speed. He skidded to a halt at the base of the giant globe, scattering snowflakes everywhere, startling a few elves and irritating the yetis.

"NORTH!" Jack yelled urgently.

The little elves ran about underfoot in a panic, not really knowing what to do or what was going on, while one of the yetis took off to find North. Jack tapped his staff impatiently against the hardwood floors, sending ice and frost across the surface and causing the confused elves to slip and slide.

"Jack, Jack. What is big commotion?" North exclaimed, finally coming out of his private workshop. His boots slipped slightly on the icy floor, but he steadied himself with ease. "Why are you not watching over Autumn Aki?"

"I was, but something happened," Jack explained, then launched into the story of Autumn's fight with the fearlings. North listened intently, with concern and his eyes went wide in surprise when Jack recounted how she had thrown off the fearlings altogether. "She's starting to scare me, North," he finished.

"Why does she scare you?" North asked, confused. "It sounds like we have nothing to worry about if Autumn can resist fearlings so easily."

"But that's the thing," Jack insisted. "I don't think the darkness in her is completely gone. When she ordered me and Pitch out of her house, her eyes went black again. And I don't mean her eyes seemed darker in the low light; I mean the whites of her eyes went completely _black_."

North furrowed his eyebrows in thought. "This is not good sign for Guardians; the darkness within—"

"I know," Jack interrupted. "The darkness within could mean the end of the Guardians forever. But the key word here is 'could'. It _could_ mean the end. I think Autumn will fight that darkness as hard as she can."

"She may fail," North countered warningly.

"I know I haven't known her very long," Jack said. "But I'm _sure_ she can do this. We can't give up on her. If we do, then we've already lost. We have to help her!"

North clapped his hands together, coming to a decision. "Alright, Jack. I will tell others of situation. You must watch over Autumn if she likes it or not, and do not let Pitch near her."

"I'll freeze him solid if he tries," he said acidly. "I'll bring Autumn here when she's done babysitting so that we can explain better."

With that, he shot up through the skylight and made his way back to Garrett Park, Maryland and Autumn Aki.

* * *

Sandy was floating high in the sky on a cloud of golden dreamsand; thousands of tendrils of the same dreamsand wormed their way from the cloud towards the sleeping children of the world. The Sandman himself was actually nestled comfortably in the cloud, reading Autumn's diary from start to finish, trying to comprehend why Pitch would single out this one child. A few of the entries stood out to him.

~_Dear Diary_

_Mommy gave me this diary to write my dreams in. She says that dreams have meanings and it helps if I write them down every day so I can figure out what they mean. I hope this makes the nightmares go away._ ~

So Autumn wrote in the diary with the hope of understanding why she never had a good dream? Sandy felt a twinge of guilt; it was his job to give children sweet dreams but he had never given her any.

~_Dear Diary_

_Mommy says there's no such thing as the Boogeyman, but I saw him in my dream last night. He's always there watching me from the shadows. Mommy said it's just a nightmare and that he's not real, but I'm sure he's really there and he's the one making me have bad dreams._ ~

~_Dear Diary_

_I think the Boogeyman doesn't like it when Mommy says he's not real. I have really bad nightmares when she tells me he's not real. I told her to stop telling me that he's not real because he is real. Mommy said she will stop telling me that but I don't think she believes in him still. Maybe the nightmares will stop if Mommy starts believing._ ~

Sandy stared at the last entry in disbelief; he knew Pitch hated it when parents told their children that he wasn't real, but to take out that anger on the child who refused to believe her mother when she said he didn't exist? That was truly low. Was he trying to prove to Autumn that he was real by giving her worse nightmares when her mother tried to tell her he wasn't?

~_Dear Diary_

_Mommy got me a nightlight today. She says that I don't have to be afraid of the dark anymore._ ~

~_Dear Diary_

_I asked Mommy to take my mattress off the frame today. The Boogeyman hides in the shadows under my bed so if there is no under, then maybe he won't be able to hide, and if he can't hide, maybe he'll go away. _~

~_Dear Diary_

_My mirror scares me at night because sometimes I see the Boogeyman's golden eyes staring at me from behind me. But when I turn to look, he's gone. I put a towel over my mirror so I can't see my reflection._ ~

~_Dear Diary_

_I had a really weird dream last night. When I was dreaming, it was very scary, but now that I'm awake, it's not scary anymore. In my dream I saw a baby girl walking around. She was crying and yelling "Dada, dada!" I went over and picked her up and she looked at me and said "where dada?" I said "I don't know." Then the baby started crying again. Then the Boogeyman came out of the shadows. I forget what he looked like now, but he stood there and held out his arms and said to me "give me the child." I held the baby closer and tried to protect her from the Boogeyman, but she squirmed around and tried to grab him yelling "dada!" Then I realized that the baby was his baby, and he was her daddy. Then the baby turned all dark like him and bit me. I woke up then. I'm not scared now but I was when I was sleeping._ ~

Sandy sat up suddenly and narrowed his eyes at that entry. That dream _had_ to mean something. It wasn't the sort of thing Pitch would make a child dream so this one had to have come from Autumn's subconscious. But what could it mean?

* * *

Autumn was quite unaware of all the fuss she was causing. Instead, she was trying very hard to get Stephanie to clean her room—a task that sounds much easier than it is—while at the same time, trying not to dwell on the fearling quietly nesting in her soul. It hadn't moved once since she became aware of it, but Autumn could tell it was just biding its time; waiting for the right moment to make a bid for control.

So far, she had managed to get through watching the twins, class, and an hour and a half of Stephanie. Half an hour more and she would be free to find Jack and apologize for sending him away before. Furthermore, she _had_ to figure out how to get rid of this fearling.

"Autumn, I'm done," Stephanie called from the top of the stairs. "Can I watch TV now?"

"One minute," Autumn sighed, getting up. "I need to make sure it's up to your mother's standard."

She went upstairs and after confirming that the room passed inspection—barely—she informed the seven-year-old that she could indeed watch television.

Letting Stephanie watch Disney shows gave Autumn the excuse of not being very entertaining. She just sat on the sofa next to the little girl and pretended to be watching with her, while in reality, she was keeping a close watch on the fearling within her.

Suddenly, she felt a cold breeze float through the room.

"Stephanie, did you open a window?" she asked.

"No," the girl responded, not taking her eyes off the screen.

Frowning, Autumn got up to investigate the source of the cold draft. She found the culprit crawling in through the kitchen window.

"Really, Jack?" Autumn asked, irritated.

Jack fell into the kitchen in surprise and hit the floor with a thump that shook the floor slightly. He stood up and grinned like he had meant to do that and nonchalantly brushed himself off.

"Hi, Autumn!" he said cheerfully, but his eyes betrayed a wariness that broke Autumn's heart. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"I _work_ here," she whispered. "You can't just walk in through the window unannounced!"

"I needed to see if you were alright," Jack replied, the false cheer gone. "I was worried about you."

Autumn sighed and walked around him to close the window.

"I _do_ need to talk to you," she admitted. "But now is not the time. Stephanie's parents will be home any minute and I don't need them seeing me talking to what they perceive to be empty space."

"Why not?" Jack teased. "You could just tell them you're talking to Jack Frost. It's wouldn't be a lie."

"Why not?" Autumn repeated. "Because they've entrusted the safety of their only child to me and if I go around telling adults I'm having conversations with Jack Frost, they'll think I'm psychotic and they'll fear for the safety of that child whom they have left in my care. _That's _why not."

"Okay, okay," Jack put his hands up in surrender. "I was only joking."

"I'm sorry, Jack," she replied wearily. "I'm just not in the mood for jokes today. You wouldn't believe the stressful day I've had."

"I think I _may_ actually," he contradicted.

Before Autumn could ask him what he meant, Stephanie walked into the kitchen.

"Autumn, who are you talking to?" she asked, looking around for another person or a phone and seeing neither.

"No one," Autumn said automatically, "I'm talking to myself."

Jack stared at her with a look of betrayal. He wasn't 'no one', he was _Jack Frost_, and she had promised to tell the children about him.

Autumn then realized her mistake and the fearling inside of her started laughing gleefully at the young guardian's pain.

"Why are you talking to yourself?" Stephanie asked. "That can't be a very interesting conversation."

"Yeah," Autumn said hastily, kneeling down to the child's level. "Talking to yourself is really boring, that's why I was actually talking to Jack Frost."

Jack's eyes widened hopefully.

"Who's Jack Frost," the little girl asked.

Autumn could sense that Jack was going to make a comment but ignored him and answered the question. "He's the spirit of winter; he makes the frost on the windows, he start snowball fights, and makes it snow so much that you get snowdays. He just came in the kitchen window, that's why it was cold before; because he left it open."

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at her babysitter. "You're making all that up," she accused. "I don't see anybody else in here."

Jack sighed sadly in defeat.

Autumn glanced up at him then turned back to the child in front of her. "He's right there," she insisted, pointing. "You can only see him if you believe in him. If you don't believe, then you won't be able to see him and you'll walk right through him."

"You can't walk through people," Stephanie countered. "That's impossible."

"It's magic, Steph, anything is possible."

"Magic isn't real; it's only in books and movies."

"Okay, then. If magic isn't real, then explain how Santa Claus gets down the chimney. He's an awfully big man to just slide down such a narrow space."

Stephanie stared for a moment taking that in as Autumn and Jack grinned triumphantly and the fearling gnashed its teeth in frustration.

Just then, the front door opened and snapped the little girl out of her thought process. She yelled "Mommy's home!" and dashed to the door to greet her.

Autumn winced. "So close!" she muttered and went out into the next room to get her coat and boots. Jack sighed and followed her sadly.

"Hi, Autumn," Stephanie's mother, Valentine, greeted her.

"Hi, Val," Autumn returned, pulling on her coat.

"Everything go okay?"

"Yep, pretty much; she had a peanut butter sandwich when she got home and then she cleaned her room and we watched television."

As Autumn listed off the things she and Stephanie had done since walking there from the school, Jack absently stared around the room and twiddled his staff in boredom. Just then he noticed a certain blond-haired child staring _directly at him_ with her mouth slightly open.

"Right, well I'm off," Autumn said, ready to go. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Autumn," Val called.

Autumn grabbed the sleeve of Jack's hoodie to pull him along as he seemed to be transfixed on something, and dragged him outside with her before closing the door behind her.

Jack snapped out of his daze and followed her with an excited skip in his step.

"What's got you so chipper all of a sudden?" Autumn asked in confusion.

"She could see me," he said simply with a huge grin across his face. "What you said to her worked!"

"What do you mean? She said in the kitchen that she couldn't see anybody but me."

"Yeah, but as we were leaving, she looked right at me, mouth gaping open like a fish out of water."

Autumn just smiled slightly at the young spirit's antics, almost forgetting her own problems for a moment. Almost.

"Jack, we need to talk about something," she said carefully.

The grin slid off Jack's face as he remembered why he was there.

"Okay, but we need to go to the Pole first; the others need to hear this too."

With that, he put and arm around her waist, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and they shot into the sky.

* * *

Bunny, Tooth, and Sandy got North's call and came running (or flying, as the case may be) as fast as they could, knowing this had something to do with Autumn.

"What's happened now?" Bunny asked.

"I think it best that Jack explain when he gets back," North said. "He knows story better than I."

"What story?" Tooth asked, nervously fiddling with a golden box in her hands. "Did something happen to Autumn?"

"Autumn is fine," North placated her with a wave of his hands. "But there is discussions to do."

Bunny and Tooth exchanged a confused look, then looked to Sandy to see if he was following what was happening. But Sandy wasn't paying attention to the exchange; instead, he had his nose in Autumn's dream diary, still attempting to understand the last entry he had read.

"What's that you've got there, Sandy?" Bunny asked, stepping closer.

Sandy didn't raise his eyes from the book and answered with the dreamsand above his head, which formed into the shape of a book.

"Yeah, I can see it's a book, mate," Bunny began, frustrated.

Just then, he was interrupted by the arrival of Jack and Autumn through the sky light as usual, followed by a flurry of snowflakes.

"Autumn!" Tooth exclaimed, flitting up to her and beaming brightly.

"Hi, Tooth," Autumn smiled slightly, fixing her windswept hair.

"I-I have something for you," the fairy said nervously clutching the golden box.

"Wait, Tooth," Jack interrupted. "Autumn said she had something important to tell us."

Everyone looked expectantly at Autumn, who shuffled nervously.

"Um… I don't know where to begin…" she trailed off.

"How about with what happened this morning?" Jack offered.

She nodded, took a deep breath, and began to explain. She started with waking up early, then nodding off again, only to find herself cornered by Pitch in a nightmare. Everyone murmured appreciatively at her cunning in alerting Jack while she was still asleep.

"I know I talk in my sleep," she explained. "So I knew that if I yelled loud enough in my dream, I would yell out loud in the real world and Jack would hear me."

"Brilliant, kid," Bunny exclaimed.

"But then all the fearlings came rushing at me and I don't remember what happened after," she continued. "Next thing I knew, I could hear the Harry Potter theme song coming from my clock radio and I found myself surrounded by darkness."

"You mean, you don't remember anything you did while the fearlings had control of you?" Jack asked incredulously.

Bunny, Tooth, and Sandy gasped at this information; that the fearlings had possessed her, but Autumn was more concerned about the part about having done something she couldn't remember.

"Why?" she asked worriedly. "What did I do?"

"Don't worry about it," Jack said hastily. "You don't want to know."

"Oh my god! Did I attack you?"

"Well, not really," he scratched the back of his head nervously. "The radio going off sort of distracted you."

"But I tried to hurt you?" Autumn confirmed with tears in her eyes.

"Well, something like that…"

Her eyes went wide in realization. "It was worse than that, wasn't it?"

He nodded awkwardly.

"Oh, Jack!" she cried, flinging her arms around him and hugging him tightly. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to, I swear! I didn't mean it, it wasn't me!"

"I know, I know," the winter spirit said, gently prying the sobbing girl off of him. "I know it wasn't you, the fearlings had control of you, but they're gone now, so everything is fine."

Except he knew that everything was _not_ fine, because she had wanted to talk about something important. His suspicions were confirmed when Autumn pulled away from him completely and stepped a good distance from all of the assembled spirits.

"But they're _not_ all gone," she said softly, eyes darting from one Guardian to the next, as if worried how they would react. "There's one left."

Jack's heart sank; he knew there was something about Autumn that they would all have to worry about, but he wouldn't have thought there were still fearlings inside of her. Tooth gasped and held her hands to her mouth, clutching the golden box between them. Sandy dropped the dream diary in shock and hastened to pick it up again.

But the reactions that worried Autumn the most were North and Bunny's. They exchanged a wary look and their hands twitched slightly as if trying not to reach for their weapons.

"If you've got a fearling inside you still," Bunny said suspiciously, paws still twitching. "How do we know that we're talking to Autumn and not it?"

"Because one fearling on its own can't control me," Autumn replied quickly.

"And how would you know that?" Bunny countered. "How do you know it's not influencing everything you are doing?"

"Bunny, leave her alone!" Jack stepped in. "She was with those kids she babysits all day, if the fearling could control her, don't you think it might have done something then?"

"Not if it was biding its time until now to get the five of us together, Frostbite!" Bunny snapped.

"Y-you don't think that's what it's doing d-do you?" Autumn asked, suddenly worried. She hugged herself, eyes wide and tear-filled, and stepped further away from them.

Suddenly the fearling inside her burst out laughing and she let out a startled scream and clutched her head.

"Autumn!" Jack and Tooth yelled in unison while Bunny drew his boomerang, North drew his swords, and Sandy formed two dreamsand whips and prepared to fight the invisible foe.

"Autumn, what is happening?" North asked urgently.

The laughter grew louder in her head, drowning out North's voice.

"Stop, stop, stop!" she yelled, startling the Guardians. "Stop laughing!"

_But it's soooo funny,_ the fearling replied in a voice like sandpaper.

"It's not funny, stop it!" Autumn cried, still holding her head, eyes shut tight.

The Guardians couldn't hear what was tormenting the young woman, and so were appropriately bewildered.

_It _is_ funny, _the fearling countered. _It's funny because you think I came with the rest of the horde._

Autumn's eyes snapped open and grew wide with fear while he fearling continued to chuckle quietly. "W-what do you mean?"

"Autumn…" Jack tried, but she held up a hand and shushed him.

_I've been here your whole life,_ it whispered with a grin.

"N-no you haven't! How could you have been? I would have noticed you!"

The fear in Autumn's voice was starting to alarm the five spirits and Bunny and North gripped their weapons tighter in anxiety.

_You've never looked before…_

Her heart beat fast in her chest and her mouth went dry. Could that be right? Could she have been harboring a fearling inside of her, her whole life? Everything was silent so long that she jumped when Bunny spoke up angrily.

"What the bloody hell is going on?"

"Th-the fearling," Autumn said quietly. "It's talking to me."

The Guardians exchanged confused looks.

"Fearlings don't talk, Autumn," Tooth said worriedly.

"Is not true, Tooth," North contradicted. "The fearlings spoke to Pitch when he was human to trick him into letting them go."

"Wait, what?" Autumn asked in surprise, her distress momentarily forgotten. "Pitch was human?"

"Of course," North replied. "Most of us were, too."

"How did he become like this?"

"Pitch used to guard prison where fearlings were kept during Golden Age," he explained. "Fearlings made themselves sound like his daughter crying for help."

"He has a _daughter_?" Jack exclaimed.

"Yeah," Bunny replied sadly. "Her name is Seraphina, and she is Mother Nature."

"Okay…" Jack said slowly. "Setting aside that incredible information for a second. Autumn, what was the fearling saying?"

The Guardians all looked to her expectantly and her guard went up again.

"It said that it's been there my whole life and not just since the horde of them took me over this morning," she said slowly.

"But how?" Tooth asked. "Wouldn't you have noticed?"

"I didn't know it was there after the others had left until I looked for it within myself," she explained.

"It could be a trick," Bunny pointed out. "Fearlings lie."

"Maybe…" Autumn wanted to agree with Bunny, but something told her the fearling wasn't lying.

Sandy fiddled awkwardly with the diary for a moment in the silence. He flipped it open and shut again over and over until something caught his eye and he paused to read the entry he found there. His surprise was illustrated by a series of dreamsand explosions above his head, drawing the attention of the other four Guardians and Autumn.

"What is it?" the human girl asked in alarm.

'When you were a child,' Sandy signed one-handed, 'did you have an imaginary friend?'

Autumn translated out loud for the benefit of the others and then answered. "I _did_ actually, his name was Shadow. Why?"

He handed her the diary and she read the entry it was open to.

~_Dear Diary_

_Shadow was in my dream last night. He was different from when I was little. And he was scary just like all my dreams. He said the darkness was going to eat me up one day._ ~

Autumn held the book tightly and handed it back to Sandy shakily.

"I don't remember this dream," she said tensely.

'That's why you wrote them down,' Sandy answered, taking the diary back.

"What sort of imaginary friend was Shadow?" Bunny asked.

"He was my shadow, he followed me everywhere," she explained. "Except at night when he got lost in the rest of the shadows. That's one of the main reasons I was afraid of the dark; because I couldn't see Shadow.

"And he liked to get me to pull pranks on people, things like jumping out of empty lockers in the changing rooms at school when people walked by and scaring the pants off them. Now that I think about it, he might have been real after all and when I stopped believing in him, I couldn't see him anymore."

"Um… Autumn…" Tooth said nervously. "I think Shadow might have been that fearling."

Autumn blinked once then frowned. "No, that can't be right; he was my friend, we played games together. He made me feel brave when I was alone, and I missed him at night when I couldn't see him. Fearlings make you feel _fear_ not strength."

But as she said this, she remembered what Pitch had said that morning. Fear makes you stronger.

"There's one way to find out," Tooth said, holding out the golden box. "This box has your wisdom teeth in it. It should also hold all of your memories of childhood."

Autumn stared at the beautiful box. What would she find when she looked inside? Would the information satisfy her curiosity or make the situation at hand more stressful? The curiosity won out and she reached for the box.

She examined it for a moment. There was a picture on the end of Autumn as a child and she felt a twinge of nostalgia; how simple things were then. Then she ran two fingers across the surface and a bright light shone out of it blinding her for a moment before her memories overtook her.

* * *

"Do it, Autumn, it'll be funny," said a rough, yet child-like voice.

Autumn looked around to find a small boy standing next to her. He looked about her age, except he seemed to be made from shadows.

"You don't think it'll be too mean?" Autumn found herself saying. She was about six years old and standing in the clothing section of a Wal-Mart, her mother just a few feet away.

"No," Shadow replied. "It's funny. Besides, nobody will get hurt for real, just a little scared."

"Then why don't you do it?"

"Because only you can see me. What fun is jumping out to scare someone when they can't see you?"

"Oh right."

This seemed reasonable to her, and so she went and hid inside the racks of clothes and waited quietly for someone to walk by.

When someone did, she leaped out and yelled, causing the lady who was perusing the rack to scream in surprise. Autumn and Shadow fell about laughing until Mrs. Aki came up and scolded her daughter for scaring the other customers.

The memory faded and was soon replaced with another.

"Mommy, where is my daddy?" Autumn asked. She was four years old and it was the first time she had ever asked the question.

Her mother looked confused at the question as if she had quite forgotten that it takes two to have a baby.

"He's gone, sweetie," she replied as gently as she could.

"Gone where? Did he die?"

"No, he's not dead…" she said awkwardly; she wasn't thrilled that her four-year-old knew about death already, but it did make explaining things easier sometimes. But this wasn't one of those times.

"So he just left? Why would he do that? Doesn't he love me?" Autumn was near tears.

"Oh, Autumn, it's not that simple," Mrs. Aki replied, picking her daughter up and putting her in her lap. "Sometimes things don't work out between mommies and daddies. Sometimes daddies aren't ready to be daddies and they get scared and leave. But when they realize they were wrong to leave, it's already too late to come back."

"Did daddy ever try to come back?" the little girl sniffed.

"Maybe," her mother said, wiping the tears from the child's face. "I don't know. But I haven't seen him since you were very small."

The memory faded and Autumn wondered briefly who her father was and if she could see him in one of these memories when the memory changed to answer that very question.

This time, Autumn was outside of herself, watching the scene unfold. Everything seemed vaguely familiar to her despite having no memory of the setting.

It was at a small, indoor play place with a springy floor and very short slides. The sort of place that parents take their toddlers to in a mall to rest for a little while between shopping. To one side was a row of benches where all the parents were sitting and keeping a close eye on their children.

Among the parents was Autumn's mother, only much younger, and following her gaze, she saw a very young version of herself standing still amongst all of the running and playing children her age. She was possibly two years old and staring at something on the other side of the play place.

Autumn looked and nearly cried out in shock. There, standing at the farthest end of the place, watching her like a hawk, was Pitch. None of the other children seemed to be able to see him, but little Autumn couldn't take her eyes off him.

He approached her carefully, not wanting to walk through anyone, never taking his eyes off her. Little Autumn took a step toward him and he faltered. As he did, one of the little boys playing ran straight through him causing him to gasp in discomfort.

Suddenly, as if she had felt the boy walk through her too, little Autumn started to cry loudly.

Mrs. Aki leaped to her feet and rushed to pick up the wailing child, but Autumn squirmed and reached out for Pitch.

"Da!" she cried inarticulately. "Da!"

"What do you want, baby?" her mother asked pleadingly. "What's wrong?"

"Da!" the toddler cried again.

Pitch came around and stood in front of the frazzled young mother, disregarding the children running through him.

"She wants me!" he told her, but Mrs. Aki couldn't hear him; he was invisible to all but the child trying to reach out to him. "If you could still see me, you would realize that! How could you forget that I was real?"

Mrs. Aki simply walked through the frustrated Nightmare King, her baby on one hip. She grabbed the diaper bag and made her way out of the play place. But Pitch wasn't giving up that easily.

"You believed in me once," he growled. "We were even friends! How can you have stopped believing?"

"Da!" Autumn cried again, happily this time, reaching out for the dark spirit.

"What are you saying?" her mother asked, confused.

"She obviously wants _me_," Pitch said irritated. "She wants her father!"

The memory faded and Autumn found herself in reality again. She dropped the golden box from her hands and it clattered to the floor.

"He's my father," she whispered.

* * *

**A/N: (5,281) So did any of you see that coming? If you are confused, don't worry; all will be explained soon. Anyway as usual I hope you enjoyed this chapter, leave a review and tell me just how much you liked it :) R&R!  
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	6. Irony Revealed

**A/N: Okay so I know it's been a really long wait but if it's any consolation, I just wrote 2,000 words of this story with no potty breaks. Yeah, you can bet I need to pee. Anyway, on that bizarre not, I hope you all love this chapter, it's full of irony (as suggested by the chapter title) and angst! FEELS ALERT! Enjoy!  
**

**I don't own.**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Irony Revealed  
**

The Guardians all stared at Autumn in confusion, not understanding what seemed to be half of a thought.

"Autumn what…?" Jack started to ask but trailed off, not knowing what to say.

"He's my father," she whispered again.

"Who is, kid?" Bunny asked in a surprisingly gentle voice.

Autumn looked up at the Pooka with tears glistening in her eyes, a look of horror and realization marring her features. Hesitantly, and with no small amount of fear, she shook her head, her mouth pressed into a firm line. To the others, she looked like she was trying not to throw up, but in truth, she as too afraid of what they would do if they learned that she was the daughter of the Nightmare King.

"Come on, Autumn," Tooth urged gently. "How are we supposed to help you if you won't tell us what's wrong?"

"What did you see, Autumn?" Jack asked. "What did you remember?"

"N-nothing, Jack" she stuttered. "I just learned who my father is, and it shocked me, that's all."

It wasn't a lie.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked to be sure.

"I'm fine," she insisted, taking a shuddering breath.

"Did you find anything about fearling?" North asked.

"He's Shadow," Autumn said nodding. "But I'm not sure he's actually a fearling."

"What do you mean?" Tooth asked.

"Well, when I was invaded by the swarm of fearlings, I got a good idea of what sort of creatures they are, and Shadow doesn't act like that at all. He's more of a trickster than a harbinger of fear."

As she said this, she looked at her shadow on the floor and tried to see her old friend. For a moment, she thought she saw a gleaming pair of yellow eyes open where hers would be in the darkness. These eyes held a feeling of mischief and glee within them before the blinked once and vanished.

The Guardians exchanged looks of confusion at this news.

"Did you learn why we missed you?" Bunny asked.

"No, but I think I'm piecing it together."

"Care to share?" Jack asked.

"Not yet; I'm still fleshing out the details," she responded. "I want to be sure, first."

"Fair enough," North said gently. "You will inform us when you have more information, yes?"

Autumn nodded; she was sure that being Pitch's daughter probably had something to do with the oversight of the Guardians where she was concerned, but for obvious reasons, she wasn't willing to share that information at this time.

"I can take you home now if you want," Jack offered.

"Jack, you can't watch over her every night," Tooth said. "You have responsibilities."

"But—" Jack tried.

"No buts," Bunny interrupted. "Tooth's right."

"Yes," North agreed. "We can take it in turns. Who will watch over Autumn this night?"

Sandy, who had been silently observing everything up to this point, suddenly floated up and waved a hand in the air. The other Guardians looked at him and he grinned, pointing to himself.

"Very well," North said nodding to the little golden man. "Sandy will take Autumn home and make sure she had good dreams all night, yes?"

The others all nodded—Jack a bit reluctantly—and Autumn knew that it was useless to argue over whether or not she could handle herself where Pitch was concerned. So Sandy created an airplane out of sand and helped her into the passenger seat like the gentleman that he is.

She waved to the others as the sandplane took off from the ground and said "I'll keep you apprised." But as they headed back towards Garrett Park, she thought that she wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell them, nor was she sure she wanted to tell them anything at all.

As the North Pole shrank into the distance, Sandy turned to Autumn with a very serious expression that she suspected he rarely had in place.

'What did you really see in your memories?' he signed.

"What do you mean?" Autumn tried. "I told you all back there what I saw."

'Don't give me that,' he countered. 'You were too scared of what you saw. What did you see?'

"Nothing, just something about my father," she insisted.

'But there's more to it than that,' he pressed. 'Was it Pitch? Was he in your memories?'

Autumn swallowed hard and debated whether or not to tell the little golden man what she saw in her memories, but he seemed to have understood her reluctance because he continued without her responding.

'I read something in your diary,' he signed, 'a dream that didn't seem like one of your normal nightmares.'

"What do you mean?" she asked, wondering where he was going with this.

'I think it was a memory,' he replied and handed her the diary.

It was open to an entry somewhere in the middle of the book. As she read, her eyes became wider and wider. She had forgotten all about this dream, but as she thought about it now, she recalled each detail perfectly; the small child crying for her father, Pitch coming from the shadows and asking for the child, Autumn holding her from him.

Suddenly, she remembered that it wasn't her own eyes through which she was looking in her dream, but her mother's. And the crying child was _her._ Sandy was right; this was no dream, it was a memory!

'I don't know what this dream means,' he admitted, 'but I think you do.'

Autumn nodded and sighed, prepping herself for a very serious discussion.

"You're right," she began. "It was a memory—a little distorted—but a memory never the less. I saw the true memory back at the Pole. I was just a baby when it happened, I could barely talk yet. Anyway, Pitch was there," she paused, waiting for a reaction from Sandy, but he nodded calmly and invited her to continue with a wave of his hand. "He was just watching me play with the other children. They couldn't see him, but I could and when one of the kids walked through him, I freaked out and started crying. Anyway, long story short, when my mom picked me up, he got really angry that she couldn't see him, like he expected her to be able to. He said they had been friends once."

At this, Sandy's eyebrows rose so high they threatened to come off his face.

'Pitch doesn't have friends,' he contradicted.

"I'm just telling you what he said," Autumn replied with raised hands. "Anyway, then I tried to reach out to him, and my mom asked me what I was after. Pitch responded that I clearly wanted my father…"

She let that sentence hang in the air for a moment, eyeing the Sandman cautiously.

He huffed a silent sigh and raised his hands to sign 'I can see why you didn't want to tell us what you saw.'

"I think the reason you all missed me is because I'm not entirely human," she ploughed on, eager to get it all over with now that she had begun. "I'm part whatever-it-is-that-Pitch-is. But what I don't get is why he would give me nightmares my whole life?"

'Pitch has a habit of forgetting the things of his past,' Sandy explained. 'We think it's because of the fearlings that have taken him over; they won't let him remember because it makes him more human.'

"Do you think I could get him to remember?" Autumn asked hopefully.

'Maybe. I don't know.'

At that moment, the little sandplane arrived in front of Autumn's house in Garrett Park and vanished, leaving her standing and Sandy floating in her front lawn.

"He's probably going to show up again tonight," Autumn said and for the first time in her life, she almost looked forward to the Boogeyman's visit.

'You're going to confront him aren't you?' Sandy signed with a worried expression.

"I'll be fine," she insisted. "The fearlings can't control me, remember? And he's never tried to physically harm me before. I just want to talk to him."

'You're a very brave girl,' he conceded. 'I'll be nearby if you need me.'

"Thank you," she said sincerely and walked towards her front door. As she did so, Sandy floated off into the air above her house, took up residence on a golden cloud made of dreamsand, and began weaving good dreams, which floated off towards the sleeping children of the world.

When Autumn stepped inside, her mother called a warm greeting from the living room where she was reading a book.

"You're out later than usual," she commented.

"I went to hang out with some friends for a bit after work," Autumn replied.

"Okay, well I put your dinner in the microwave, so if you ate already, could you put it in the refrigerator for me?"

"No, I haven't eaten, I'll eat it now. Thanks, mom."

Autumn then reheated her dinner and scarfed it down as quickly as possible before putting away her dishes and heading upstairs to her room, calling to her mother as she went.

"I'm really tired, mom. I'm gonna go to bed early tonight."

"Okay," her mother replied, turning a page in her book. "Good night, dear."

"Good night."

Now that that was out of the way, Autumn went to her room and closed and locked the door. She turned to examine her room, finding it completely empty. Frowning, she went through her morning routine of changing for bed, combing out her hair, and brushing her teeth in the attached bathroom.

Still finding no Nightmare spirit in her bedroom, she turned and flicked off the light. As she approached her bed however, she heard a silky voice speak from the shadows.

"I told you I would return," Pitch said softly.

Autumn whipped around and peered through the gloom. The only part of her father she could see were his luminescent amber eyes, but it was enough to know where he was.

"Pitch," she said calmly, for once not a trace of fear in her voice.

"You can't fool me with that façade of bravery," he sneered back at her.

"It's not a façade," Autumn replied, still as level as ever. "I'm not scared of you anymore."

He let out one derisive bark of laughter. "Twenty years, you were afraid of me, and now suddenly you're not? I find that very hard to believe, Autumn."

"Believe it or not, that's your choice. It is what it is, and I'm not scared."

"Did you say something, Autumn?" her mother called from downstairs, interrupting the tense moment between father and daughter.

"No, mom," Autumn called back, not taking her eyes off the dark figure before her.

"Let's go somewhere we can talk more privately," Pitch said suddenly grabbing the young woman's shoulders.

She resisted the urge to yelp as she was abruptly dropped into darkness, her bedroom disappearing from around her. She was only in the dark for as long as it would take to walk through a doorway and she soon found herself in a dark cavern, a dim light filtering in from somewhere above.

"Welcome to my home," Pitch's voice came from very close by and Autumn's reflexes betrayed her, making her jump in surprise. The dark spirit laughed lightly. "I knew you were still afraid."

"I'm not," she protested stubbornly. "You just startled me, there is a difference."

"Is that so?" he sneered. "Then what, may I ask, has brought about this change? Was it the Guardians?"

"Not precisely," Autumn began. "It was a memory, actually. Tooth helped me remember something I had forgotten."

"How so?" Pitch asked, narrowing his eyes. "You've no baby teeth left, and she's never collected a single one."

"Not baby teeth, no. But last night she collected my wisdom teeth, which I had kept."

His eyes went wide at this news, but he recovered his shock quickly. "And what did you remember that makes you so brave now?"

"I remembered who my father is," she responded, carefully taking in his features and hoping for some recognition. There was none.

_He won't remember,_ Shadow spoke up in Autumn's mind. _The fearlings will have taken those memories from him._

"And what has this got to do with me?" Pitch was genuinely confused.

_You can make him remember, though,_ Shadow continued making it difficult to focus. _You are half fearling, you can command them._

"You've forgotten, haven't you?" Autumn said, trying not to show that she had a fearling talking to her in her mind. "You've forgotten why you spend so much time around me. The fearlings won't let you remember because it makes you too human."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Pitch snarled suddenly. "You don't know _anything_ about fearlings!"

"Don't I?" she countered. "Then I suppose I don't know how I threw off the fearlings when that should be impossible."

"What are you talking about?" he was rapidly becoming impatient. "Get to the point!"

"The fearlings couldn't control me because I'm part fearling!" Autumn snapped angrily. "_That's_ why the guardians missed me when I was a child; because I wasn't a human child!"

Pitch stared at the girl, dumbfounded. He didn't know what to think; was it even possible for a child to be part fearling? How would such a thing occur?

"You're lying!" he snapped back. "Such a thing is impossible!"

"You really don't remember, do you?" Autumn's anger was slowly ebbing into disappointment. But why would she be disappointed that Pitch couldn't remember that he was her father? Shouldn't she be relieved?

_You have to _make_ him remember!_ Shadow interjected.

"Remember _what_?" Pitch asked exasperated. Despite his original intentions, he was becoming aware of his growing desire to know just what this young woman knew about him that he had apparently forgotten.

_How?_ Autumn asked her imaginary friend silently.

_Use your powers over the fearlings, _Shadow returned.

"Think back twenty years," Autumn encouraged while silently asking her companion, _What powers?_ "Surely you must remember why you've been stalking me my whole life?"

_The powers you've had your whole life. The powers that made me your friend and not your undoing. The powers you have are stronger than any fearling; you just have to _use _them._

"I don't remember…" Pitch said, realization dawning on him.

_How do I use them?_

"You have to try," Autumn insisted. "If you've forgotten something as important as this, what else do you think you've forgotten?"

_Just talk to the fearlings,_ Shadow advised._ Be commanding and persuasive. It will come naturally._

"I can't remember," Pitch was now pulling at his hair in frustration. "All I can remember is that twenty-two years ago, Jack Frost and the Guardians humiliated me! Nothing significant since! I know I had a plan of revenge, but I can't remember it anymore. Something distracted me, but I can't for the life of me remember what!"

"It's the fearlings," Autumn maintained. "What you're not remembering makes you more human. Something they don't want."

"WHAT IS IT?" Pitch roared, making Autumn jump. "TELL ME WHAT I'M FORGETTING!"

"You have to remember," she asserted. "If I just tell you, you won't believe me."

"I CAN'T REMEMBER!" he shouted in aggravation.

_Make him!_ Shadow persisted.

At this point, a surge of annoyance went up Autumn's spine and she lurched forward and grabbed Pitch's wrists which were still held near his head from grabbing his hair.

The Nightmare King was so shocked at the girl's actions and strength that he froze up. His eyes found hers and saw that they seemed to bore into his very soul. Suddenly, they turned coal black and the whites disappeared entirely.

"_You will let him remember!_" her voice held a certain cadence of power, and Pitch got the sense that she wasn't speaking to him, but to the beings inside him.

There was an uncomfortable feeling in the region of his stomach as the fearlings that had possessed him for so long writhed in equal discomfort. Autumn let go of his wrists and he fell to his hands and knees, feeling as though he were about to vomit.

Suddenly, a rush of memories hit him like a freight train.

* * *

He would have his revenge on those Guardians for his humiliation. For this to be accomplished, he would need to be patient and cunning, and he would need a plan.

But first, he would need a way out of this pit his own Nightmares had dragged him into.

* * *

Free at last, Pitch could now put his plan into action; he would have his revenge and all the fear of the children of Earth.

Something collided with him, shaking him from his thoughts of vengeance.

"Oh, crap!" said the voice of a young woman. "Sorry, sir, I wasn't watching where I was walking. My fault entirely."

Pitch looked down at the young woman, just barely out of high school. She was Asian, with long black hair that reached her elbows and dark brown eyes whose depths were endless. She looked at him with a sincere apologetic look on her face, and as he looked back at her, he felt a strange vibration in his very being. She could _see _him!

"Not at all," he found himself saying smoothly. "It is I who should have been watching where I was walking."

The young woman stared at him with an unfathomable expression, a slight blush coloring her cheekbones. Pitch couldn't understand her chagrin, nor could he understand why he felt no desire to frighten this woman.

"I'm Hana," she said after an awkward pause and held out her hand. "Hana Aki."

"Pitch," he said, taking the offered hand and shaking it once. "Pitch Black."

"That's an ironic name," she said smiling. "Of course I shouldn't talk; my name means 'Autumn Flower', which is ironic too because flowers don't grow in autumn. Actually in English it ends up translating to 'Flower Autumn' because my first and last name are switched in Japanese, so in Japan, my name is actually Aki Hana, which means 'Autumn Flower' but I'm rambling and I really should stop before I say something embarrassing…"

Normally, Pitch would have found this irritating, but on this girl, he found it endearing. Especially the way her blush darkened when he smiled at her slightly.

"You have a lovely name," he replied.

"Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" she asked suddenly, hastily adding "For bumping into you, you know. Unless you have other plans, in which case I'd totally understand."

He considered this. He _did_ have plans, but they could wait. There was just something about this girl that he couldn't put his finger on.

"I like coffee," he answered smoothly.

"That's great!" Hana exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.

As she linked her arm with his and steered him down the street, he realized that his usual black cloak was gone, and in its place were a pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved button-down dress shirt. Odd too, was the fact that his skin, usually a pale, sooty grey, was now the regular color of human flesh, though still rather pale.

What phenomenon had occurred when Hana Aki collided with him?

* * *

Pitch couldn't find it within himself to care about revenge anymore. He had learned that there were more pleasures in the world than just fear, and indeed, Hana Aki's company was one of them.

He found that he craved her company more than anything else, not just because being around her made him feel human for the first time in millennia, not because, when he was with her, he wasn't invisible, and not because he _was_ invisible without her. No, he craved her company because when he was with her, his heart would beat faster and his face would grow hot, and she made him happier than he could remember since the fiasco at the end of the Golden Age. He loved her.

When he wasn't with her, he was in agony. He could feel the fearlings inside his soul getting stronger with every minute of her absence.

* * *

"Pitch," Hana said hesitantly, no trace of her usual humor in her voice, though he did detect a slight tremor. "We need to talk about something."

Noting the seriousness of her voice, he sat down next to her on the sofa in her living room. "What is it?" he asked solemnly.

She drew in a deep breath and let it out shakily, preparing herself for the worst. "I'm pregnant."

His whole world tipped sideways and threatened to dump him off. In those two words, the whole universe came crashing down around him.

"A-are you sure?" he stammered out.

"Positive."

"A-and is it…?" he couldn't get the question out.

"It's yours."

"Right," the room was spinning out of control, he felt sick.

"I can see you're gonna need some time to absorb all this," she said gently. "I'm going to go to the store to get groceries and when I get back, we can have some dinner and talk about this."

He nodded mutely and she got up, grabbed her coat and left.

Five seconds after she was gone, the pain started, but he brushed it off, needing to focus.

He was going to be a father. Again. Considering the big disappointment he must have been to Seraphina, he wasn't sure he was fit to be a father. He terrified small children. On purpose! Was that the sort of father this kid would have?

Sure he was fine when Hana was around, but every time she went somewhere without him, the fearlings would be chomping at the bit to get him under their control again. What if she had to go somewhere for an extended length of time and left him with the child? What might he do to his own son or daughter?

No. He would have to leave for the sake of the mother and the child; he couldn't be the father that this baby needed.

And so he left.

* * *

In his grief at losing his second chance at a family, Pitch found his head to be much clearer than her thought it would be. The fearlings, much to their disgust, couldn't penetrate the heartbreaking emotion. He merely curled up in a ball off misery deep in the catacombs of his underground abode.

He spent the better part of two years in this manner before finally coming to the realization that he could keep the darkness at bay with his love for the woman who was the mother of his child. He would find her again.

* * *

It took a long time, but he finally tracked down Hana Aki and her child.

The toddler was only recently a year old and walking around a small indoor playground with other children her age. The child didn't seem interested in any of the playground equipment however, as she seemed to be fixated on something in his direction. He turned to see what she was looking at, but found nothing of interest; looking back he was startled to see a pair of big brown eyes just like her mother's peering deep into his soul.

He could jump for joy; his daughter could see him. He slowly made his way towards the child, careful not to frighten her—this was the one child in the world he vowed would never be scared of him—to his utter amazement, the child took a step in his direction, clearly not afraid. He was so shocked, that he faltered in his approach and instantly regretted it. Another child of about four years ran straight through him as if he wasn't there.

It had felt like an eternity since he had been intangible and invisible, and he had quite forgotten the pain in his soul it had created. The toddler, seemingly aware of his pain, began to wail, alerting her mother to the issue.

Hana came rushing to her child's aid and to his horror, could no longer see Pitch, and indeed walked right through him with their baby on one hip while said baby attempted to reach out to him.

* * *

Pitch had known darkness. He had known it a long time. He knew that the darkness is strongest in times of intense aggressive emotions. He also knew that fearlings thrived in darkness. He knew this, but he didn't care. His anger at Hana's rejection of him gave the fearlings the opening they needed to wipe her and their child from his mind.

And so, once again shrouded in his darkness, he set out to find a child worth corrupting. One who would believe in him well into adulthood.

When he found a child, she was three years old and perfect for molding. He could not explain why, but he felt as though this child was something special. This child would grow up to be very strong indeed.

When he learned her name, he felt even surer of this fact. Her name was rather ironic; Autumn Aki.

* * *

**A/N:(4,171) So I'm dying to know what you all think of this chapter (I'm also dying to use the bathroom) so leave me a review, and check out my other RotG fic, it's called Thin Ice. Catch you all later! R&R!  
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	7. Family

**A/N: Okay I know I'm really late with this update, guys and I really have no excuse except major writer's block. This is probably the shortest chapter yet, but it's really just a transition between chapter six and chapter eight. I hope you love it! Enjoy! **

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**Chapter 7: Family  
**

* * *

Pitch opened his eyes. He was still on his hands and knees on the floor, the girl he now knew to be his daughter kneeling next to him. He could sense an energy coming off of her in pulsing waves.

"Do you understand now?" Autumn's voice had returned to normal and held a gentleness that he was not expecting.

The Nightmare King looked up to meet his daughter's eyes. She didn't look much like her sister, Seraphina, but there were some features that he knew came from him; the thin lips and the sharp-angled bone structure. The rest was all Hana. Oh, how could he have forgotten Hana?

"Why…?" he whispered. He didn't know exactly what he was asking, but he still wanted the answer.

"Why what?"

"Why…?" he began again. "Why on _Earth_ would Hana name you _Autumn_?"

Autumn just looked dumbfounded. That was not the first question she had been expecting out of her father. "What?"

"Aki means 'Autumn', why would your mother name you Autumn Autumn?"

"Is that really what you want to ask right now?" the girl was very confused.

"I would not have named you Autumn," he stated matter-of-factly, rising to a standing position.

"Seriously," she said incredulously. "This is what you're talking about?"

"I would have gone with something like Adrienne or Leilah; much more appropriate names for the half-fearling daughter of the Nightmare King."

Autumn just stared at Pitch with disbelief.

"You have no right to criticize what name my mother picked out for me. None!" she exclaimed, her anger suddenly rising. "If you wanted to have a part in naming me, you should have been there!"

Pitch's bizarre train of thought seemed to be temporarily derailed as he realized the situation he was now facing. "I wasn't safe to be around you," he murmured. "So I left to protect you and your mother."

"Oh, well you did a fantastic job of that!" she snapped sarcastically.

"So it wasn't the best decision of my life," he started.

"Understatement of the century," Autumn muttered.

"Okay so it was the second worst decision of my life, right behind opening the door of the fearling prison, but I thought I was doing the right thing!" he insisted. "You can't possibly understand how much I wanted a family, but as the universe would have it, as soon as I get what I've always wanted, it's ripped away from me!"

Several things suddenly occurred to Autumn all at once.

"How was my mother able to see you?" she asked abruptly.

He thought about it for a long moment before responding. "Your mother had the most open mind of anybody I have ever encountered, but I don't think she believed in me before she met me."

"How could she have met you at all if she didn't believe in you? Wouldn't she have walked right through you without seeing you?"

Pitch scowled at the idea. "I don't think she could see me, but had somehow managed to walk into me anyway and that made her see me."

"But then she walked through you when I was a baby," something didn't add up.

"I think I had been gone so long that she had lost her faith in my ever returning, and with that faith went her belief as well."

One last thing was nagging at her.

"Did you ever tell her that you weren't human?"

He hesitated.

"I never got the chance…"

* * *

An hour later—though it felt like much longer—Autumn found herself back in her bed, staring at the ceiling in thought.

Pitch had dropped her off thirty minutes ago with the promise of no more nightmares—not that she trusted him. Regardless, upon returning, she found Sandy pacing back and forth in her bedroom looking quite anxious.

'What happened to you?' he signed quickly.

'I was with Pitch,' she signed in return to avoid drawing the attention of her mother.

'What?!' to punctuate his silent exclamation, a question mark and an exclamation point appeared above his head in golden sand.

'It's okay,' she added hastily. 'I got him to remember me.'

Sandy's eyes went wide. 'How?'

'Apparently I have the ability to control fearlings…' she had to fingerspell the last word and held the 's' longer than necessary before dropping her hands to her sides.

He just stared at her with confusion, awe, and a little bit of apprehension.

'Shadow helped me...' she continued when the small Guardian said nothing. 'I have a small amount of influence over them and he helped me exercise it to allow Pitch to remember what made him human. I don't think he'd ever harm me now.'

'How sure are you?'

'About eighty percent sure.'

'And the other twenty percent?'

'Is pretty sure he will revert back to his old ways without my influence. It's happened before.'

Now she found herself dwelling on that possibility, but she knew that if she focussed on it too long before bed, Pitch or no Pitch, she was bound to have unpleasant dreams on the subject. Instead she decided to play her favorite bedtime game; finding pictures in the popcorn texture of her ceiling.

Soon her imagination was running wild with images of giraffes dancing with bananas and she lost track of when her imagination became her dreams.

* * *

The next morning, Autumn woke rested and relaxed. That is, until the events of the previous day and night caught up with her and the anxiety returned.

Despite what she had told Sandy, she was quite concerned about the very real possibility of Pitch reverting to his usual vindictive self. If that happened, she couldn't be sure of what he would do, but she was sure it would involve using her to take down the Guardians.

Attempting to put this thought from her mind, Autumn picked out her clothes for the day and got changed before heading downstairs to get a coffee and some breakfast. The house was quiet, but the young woman knew that her mother was simply sleeping; it was far too early for anybody to be awake yet, even the sun wasn't up yet.

Finished with her morning routine, she picked up her purse, keys, and cell phone and stepped out the door, locking it behind her.

"Good morning, Autumn," said a silky voice very close by.

The girl leaped a foot in the air and let out a startled yelp. Swinging around, she fell into a fighting stance before finally recognising the voice of her father who chuckled softly at her alarm.

"Scared?" he asked cheekily.

"Hardly," she scoffed, relaxing her pose and hiking her purse back onto her shoulder. "What are you doing here, Pitch?"

He frowned. "Can't a father spend time with his long lost daughter?"

Autumn snorted and began to walk up the street, the King of Nightmares following behind her.

"Yeah well, I don't think there is a precedent for a father who forgot he had a daughter and then, by some cruel twist of fate, began to torment her nights with nightmares before said daughter found out the truth and commanded the demons making him do these things to stop."

"I know that, but you have no idea how long I've wanted to be loved, to have a family."

He was so sad and Autumn could hear it in his voice, but she still held some resentment for the twenty years he had made her life miserable. She stopped and rounded on him.

"You want to be a family?"

"More than anything," he said earnestly.

"Then _earn _it."

He cocked his head in mingled confusion and surprise. "What?"

"Well," she considered. "Ordinarily, family is a close group of people who are blood related or incredibly close friends. However, you're not very well liked, and you had your chance with me and lost it. So since you have no friends and you've estranged your only blood relatives, you must earn your family back."

"How do I earn it back?" he asked desperately. "I want it back more than you can imagine."

"Well, you wanna know what _I've_ wanted more than anything for as long as _I_ can remember?" Autumn returned challengingly.

"What?" Pitch had no idea what his daughter could have wanted for twenty years.

"A father."

With that she stormed off up the street and the Nightmare King stood in place, baffled. So Autumn had essentially wanted what he too had wanted and it was his fault that she was deprived of it. But how was he to be a father to someone who no longer needed parental guidance?

He suddenly became aware that the object of his contemplation had already made her way up the street, around the corner and out of sight. Gathering his wits, he cloaked himself in shadows and disappeared, only to reappear in front of his quarry who jumped in surprise and then leveled her angry glare at him. For an instant, her eyes went coal black before returning to normal.

"Leave me alone," she ground out. "You're going to make me late for work."

She pushed past him and stormed up the deserted and gloomy street.

"Autumn, wait," he called before appearing before her again.

The girl closed her eyes and prayed for patience. "Don't make me walk through you, Pitch."

He inhaled a sharp breath. "Just talk to me for one minute, that's all I ask. Please."

Autumn sighed. "Fine, what?"

"Tell me what I can do to earn you back as my family," he pleaded. "I'll do anything."

She contemplated his appeal for a moment before deciding. "Anything?"

"Without restriction. I will do anything you ask. I just want a family."

"It seems we both have something the other wants. You want a family that I can provide, and I want a father and, as luck would have it, you _are_ my father. So I suggest you start acting like it, and maybe you'll earn my trust and friendship. Only then will we be family."

"Done," he said with finality.

"And it wouldn't hurt to do the same for Seraphina. Don't you think she's gone too long without her father in her life too?"

"I'll try to be in Seraphina's life a little more too," he vowed.

"Oh, and one more thing," she added. "And this one's a deal breaker."

"Anything," he repeated.

"Leave the Guardians alone. I happen to like them and it wouldn't do to hurt your daughter's friends while attempting to make amends with her."

He hesitated. Nearly everything in his being tried to get him to refuse this bargain. His hatred for the Guardians was one of his strongest drives, how could he just give up his plans for revenge against them?

Simple; that hatred may be one of his strongest drives, but it wasn't _the_ strongest. No, his desire to be loved was far greater, he knew that now. He only had to look at the circumstances that got him to this point to see that. If he had only listed to his heart before, instead of his insecurities, he would still be with Hana and he would have helped raise his beautiful daughter.

Too late, he realized that he had hesitated too long and Autumn got fed up with waiting.

"That's what I thought," she said, a hint of disappointment in her voice. She started to walk away.

"No wait!" he cried, grabbing her arm to halt her.

She faced him challengingly and he let go.

"I'll do it," he said confidently. When she didn't respond, he added, "I'll leave the Guardians alone. I'll get rid of my vendetta with them. You're my daughter, you're family, and I would do anything for you."

A slow smile started to creep across her face until she was beaming.

"It's a start."

* * *

**A/N: (1,964) You wouldn't believe how hard this was to write. Also check out my friend, Lessthanthreep's story "****The Worst That Could Happen**". I beta'd it personally and it is exciting! That is all R&R!  



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